


Stormchaser

by DesertUrbania



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fascism, Genocide, Mild Fluff, Moral injury, PTSD, Politics, Racism, War Crimes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-04-27 01:03:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14414292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertUrbania/pseuds/DesertUrbania
Summary: Nationalism—fascism, whatever you wanted to call it, it didn’t interest Roy for its fundamental message. It was the unlikely vehicle for his rise, the launching pad for his career to enact his vision. Power was the means to this end, and nothing was allowed to subvert his true ambition.But then, there was her. Shaped by the very genocide he was compliant in, forced into their ranks as a prisoner—a weapon of war. Vengeance seethed in crimson eyes, and he was not entirely convinced that she exempted him from her pursuit of justice.Though sometimes, those eyes softened when they caught his. Despite himself, he was hopeful—a small ember that he dared to shield from the unforgiving landscape around them.---Content warning for discussions of fascism, racism and genocide.





	1. First Day in Hell: Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! I've been planning this fic for a while. When I got into FMA, I was always interested in Roy's character, and his growth after taking part in the Ishvalan genocide.
> 
> I was also specifically interested in Scar, and the different ways Ishvalans coped with the extermination of their people and the annexation of their homeland. So, consider this fic a deep dive into the subject, as well as a bit of a character study.
> 
> I took the liberty of giving Scar's brother a name: 'Uriel', which refers to the angel of wisdom.
> 
> The chapter title and lyrics are from Arch Enemy :)

_Torn from home, sent down death's railroad, are we_  
_When we wake up tomorrow_  
_Will we still be wearing this curse?_  
_Will we wake up tomorrow?_  
_Which punishment is worse?_  
_Day one: no sun_  
_Stripped of our names_  
_Now we are merely numbers_  
_Permanently inked in the flames_

      [Day one]

      The house was as comfortable as ever—infused with the cooling breeze wafting through the windows and the curious scent of spices that undercut the delicious food that his mother was probably busy with. He was met at the threshold by the familiar figure of his older brother, blocking the door with his comparatively smaller frame.

There was a strange look on his face—a combination of apprehension and something like excitement, “Brother, you’re here early.”

“Master needed to go to the others, where the fighting is,” he regarded Uriel imperiously. “What exactly are you up to?”

“We’ve got visitors, that’s all,” he smiled. “A nomad group that travels Ishval…they’re staying in the village, but their alchemist is here.”

He felt a surge of exasperation, boiling to the surface through his exhaustion. “An _alchemist_?”

Uriel moved slightly out of the way to reveal an older man who sat quietly at their tea table, his face calm with an ever-so-slightly amused raise of his brows. He set the tea down and approached without hesitation, extending a well-muscled arm.

“I’m a friend, I assure you,” he said serenely. “My name is Cyrus, I’m just here because your brother wanted to talk.”

He looked at the outstretched hand before slowly raising his eyes to fix his brother with a glare. This was ridiculous—no, it was reckless. How could he be so trusting? Uriel had always been the bookish one—heavily involved in philosophy and all of these strange texts from Amestris. His parents thought it strange, but as this was a relatively liberal area, they weren’t all that concerned. He pushed past the two men and seethed quietly to himself.

Given the current climate, Uriel should know better—to not invite strangers around, to stop this blasphemous _research_.

He strode into the kitchen, where his mother was tending the hearth with the well-worn iron prod. It had occurred to him that it needed to be fixed—after all, just the other day the iron had slipped out of its wooden handle when it split with age, causing a nasty burn. Stooped with age, she turned and regarded him with a smile.

“I hope you haven’t been rude,”

She knew him too well.

“I don’t think coddling enemies in our home is a good thing,” he said sourly. “I suppose he fixed the fire iron.”

“No actually,” she turned her attention to the simmering stew. “His apprentice did.”

“There are two of them? Mother—this is madness, there’s no telling what chaos this devil-minded people will bring with them,”

There was a soft rustle of the curtain, letting in a draught from the yard. He turned and spotted a girl, probably in her mid-teens staring at them both, her arms full of firewood.

“Don’t mind him, my dear,” his mother shot him a look. “Thank you for getting these.”

“It’s nothing,” she said; his eyes were still fixed on her with suspicion. She was quite small, clad in the usual travelling robes of their people, though instead they were dyed a bluish grey rather than the traditional cream of linen. The girl was Ishvalan, at least to some extent—her eyes were the same crimson as theirs, though her skin was more wheatish than deep. The easiest feature that placed her out was her loosely braided hair; rather than the stark white of their people, hers was black, its shorter ends curling around her face in an unruly snarl. While it wasn’t unheard of for Ishvalan to intermarry with the Amestrians, it was still a taboo on both sides, and was only exacerbated by the war. This peculiarity just served to add another layer to his suspicion.

      He finally looked away from the girl, seeking his mother again; she tutted in disapproval when he gently moved her aside to hoist the hot cast iron pot off the fire on his own. After the burn from the other day, he was feeling particularly overprotective. He’d taken the war in his own stride, but the thought of his family gnawed at him; his ageing parents and his naïve, peaceful bother…

Though they hadn’t known it, he had already considered their escape. One day, he’d tell Uriel about that plan—the routes that would be safest, and that he had collected their gold and their most scared things already for a quick evacuation. He still wasn’t sure if he would be joining them. If his Master wanted him to stay—if it came down to defending the word and land of Ishvala himself, he would. But if he could protect _them_ …

“Well then,” his mother sighed. “Lunch is almost done. The bread will be ready in a little while…why don’t you take her to the village?” The last question was tentative, though imploring in its own way. He met her kind eyes, and he could see that she was begging him to be nice to the girl.

He shot her a sidelong glance; she was standing quietly to the side, looking at him with large, neutral eyes.

“Fine.”

\----

      As they left, she lifted her scarf to cover her black hair, throwing it across her shoulder to weather the gusty breeze. Many Ishvalan women covered—but he knew that she was trying to obscure her most obvious mark of difference; these days, the village was on edge.

“They won’t mind your hair,” he said gruffly. “They might mind your blasphemy, however.”

She peered up at him, “I don’t have the word ‘Alchemist’ printed on my forehead, so the first thing they see is the hair.”

He scoffed. “How old are you, girl?”

“Seventeen. My name is Adriel, by the way,”

 _Seventeen_. Barely a woman. “And how long have you been practicing that perversion of nature?”

“I’ve been an alchemist for about ten years.”

“That teacher of yours should be hanged and quartered, then,”

“Are you always this friendly?” she was smiling. It was an easy grin—innocent and childlike, but there was a look about her that said otherwise. He was used to it by now, seeing that juxtaposition of purity with the mar of the real world all over it. Every child who grew up with the war carried those little glimpses, yet untouched by the horror of bloodshed. He absently wondered why she was given up by her parents—perhaps as the war began raging, they had no choice. Did her non-Ishvalan parent decide she was too much of a liability?

He was drawn out of his reverie by a sudden call of his name; he looked towards the sound, unintentionally landing his sharp gaze on the figure of Kilea, a young woman barely into her twenties. Heavy with child, she was unsteady on her feet, and withered slightly under the look he gave her.

“Are you busy? I apologise.” Her eyes darted from him to Adriel, a cautious, quizzical expression taking hold.

“No, I apologise. I was thinking of something else,” he told her.

“Perhaps you should sit,” Adriel moved towards her, steading the older woman’s gait with a helpful arm.

“I’m not supposed to be on my feet,” she said bashfully. “My husband’s going to have a tantrum. I just…broke the new crib he built. I was carrying it—”

“Why in the world would you do that in your condition?” he asked sharply; her eyes were downcast now, guilty.

“I hate that I have to wait for him to do everything,” she murmured. “I just feel so sluggish and useless, and now look what I’ve done. I just wanted it to be in our room.”

His annoyance was ebbing away—melting rather, by the helpless woman on the verge of tears. Adriel was regarding him with a mixture of exasperation and perplexed curiosity; her eyes met his pointedly, as though she was trying to tell him to calm down. His mother had a habit of giving him that look.

“How about I take a look at it?” she asked helpfully.

“You can do woodwork?” Kilea looked at the younger girl with surprise.

Adriel gave him another glance, this time, with light amusement. “No, but I know something just as good.”

Seething annoyance took hold again as he stalked behind the two women; Kilea had found her zeal again, and was practically pulling the girl along with her. The small wooden creche was lying where it had fallen, splintered and forlorn. Adriel wasted no time, kneeling on the dirt floor where she began tracing a circle with her finger. Kilea’s eyes widened slightly, suddenly unsure as she recognised the alchemy. She looked at him for reassurance, and found none.

In less than a minute, Adriel stopped drawing, instead placing both of her palms down on the floor. Violet rivulets of light sprang forth, crackling with ominous power—they enveloped the crib, obscuring it in blinding light. When their vision cleared, the little wooden crib lay in the circle, whole again.

“By Ishvala,” Kilea murmured. “That’s amazing.”

He bit his tongue as the urge to snap at them reared its head again. To think that their god would have something to do with this?

“It’s nothing.” Adriel smiled. “Just a little help to ease your burdens. That’s what alchemy is for.”

He couldn’t help the scoff that escaped, meeting her defiant eyes with annoyed scepticism. “Is that what they told you?”

“That’s what I was taught. Alchemists are supposed to help and protect people.”

“That’s not what those Amestrians are doing with it,” he hissed. “They’re sending their State Alchemists as weapons of war.”

“I know,” she said narrowly. He was a little taken aback at that. “And if we find them we will stop them.”

Kilea looked between them with discomfort. “Would you both like some tea?”

“No, stay off your feet like you’re supposed to,” he barked. “The girl and I are leaving.”

Adriel gave her a small smile and a little bow as they left; Kilea, somewhat bewildered, returned the grin.

She wasn’t one of them, no. But she was close, and she was kind.

\----

“You say you’ll stop those alchemists,” the girl was jogging a little to keep up with his wide steps. “As though it’s easy. You know what that means?”

“Killing people?” she asked. “I’ve killed a person before.”

He knew the hollowness of taking a human life as he met her eyes. She was telling the truth. “Yet you know nothing of war, do you?”

“Everyone here knows about war,” she said matter-of-factly. “The point is, my teacher and I know that in order to protect people, that might mean taking lives. He knows it better than I do, but I’m not planning to be useless.”

Her earnestness was irritating. “Fighting isn’t something you can calmly consider. It takes preparation, it takes sacrifice. That is why I spent my life becoming a warrior for my people.”

Adriel looked at him and produced a small, curved blade from her sleeve—one with a small hoop at the end. He knew those well—they were created by their people as blades for hand-to-hand fighters. She twirled the karambit with practised ease, ending with the handle curled in her fist.

“I didn’t learn alchemy in isolation. I learned how to defend myself too. You have to have a sound body and mind to do what we do,” she explained. “Just like you’ve spent years training, so have I. We just have very different philosophies.”

He glared at her. Different philosophies? That was putting it very lightly.

\----

      Hughes was humming insufferably again. He had a nasty habit of breaking into various love songs at the sight of the tattered picture he kept in his coat. His soon-to-be wife stared up at him from the glossy paper, her happiness a foreign, almost blasphemous thing in this land.  
  
“Maes, could you stop that?”

“What? Can’t a man cheer himself up with the promise of home?” he turned to his comrade with a grin, shoving the picture into his face. “Look at her, can’t you just feel the peace spreading through you?”

“I’ll burn that thing if you keep it in my face.”

“Roy, how _could_ you,” he gasped, scandalised as he protectively cradled the paper to his chest.

“I don’t know how you can do it,” he sighed. “Keep that humour of yours after what we’ve done all day.”

Hughes’ face clouded over, as though the happiness had just melted clean off with the sun. “Because I know what it takes to stay sane, Roy. You should try it some time.”

He sighed, sipping the coffee before him and tasting nothing. He could still smell scorched flesh. Nearby, Riza Hawkeye was cleaning her rifle, her eyes despondent and hollow. No one, save for a few of the State Alchemists seemed to have any morale left. The propaganda about the war—the Ishvalan terrorists and all that—stood up poorly to the reality. Here, on the front lines, it was more of a massacre than an actual fight. Many of them wondered what these people could have done in the face of the Amestrian army anyway. It was pure carnage.

      There were Ishvalans, earnestly fighting and killing their men, at the very least. Those he found himself able to destroy with a blink of an eye. The villages that were home to “organised resistance cells” and “terrorist networks”, however, left a bad taste in his mouth. Death before trial, for the lot of them.

But he was a soldier now, and he did what he had to do. Some part of him wondered if he wanted the government line to be true—if it would make it easier. The other part realised that he did relish some aspect of the war. It was paving the way for his rise. He was a game changer here on the battlefield. This was how he could enact his plan to fix this country in the long run.

The wind blew with a sudden gust, bringing a waft of someone’s burned dinner from a bonfire nearby. He felt the urge to gag.

What was the cost of ambition? And who was paying it?

\----

      The family was gathered in the living room, sitting amongst all of the food placed on the low dining table. Uriel was still enamoured with speaking to the alchemist, and as such, he and his student had been there for a week. Cyrus was apologetic, offering to stay in a nearby inn, but his mother was not having it. Adriel was currently the light of her life—the daughter she hadn’t been able to have, who was more than willing to keep an old woman company. He found his annoyance ebbing slightly when he saw how much his mother benefitted from having the girl around. Even his father was more lively—it took his mind off the war. Unfortunately, he had no such luxury.

“I suspect you’ll be leaving soon,” he looked across at Cyrus, who sipped his tea slowly.

“Don’t be rude, son,” his mother chastised him.

“I think he means that the fighting is closing in,” Cyrus smiled sadly. “I think I’ll meet up with our group tomorrow. We need to get moving—so should you.”

“The Amestrian troops have been sighted mere miles away,” he said seriously.

Uriel nodded. “I think we need to consider getting the children, the infirm and the elderly out.”

“We’re willing to take some of you with us,” Cyrus explained. “The group is small, but we have enough folks to defend ourselves. We’ve been traversing the land without loss for a long time.”

“I can’t consider it yet,” their mother was sighing, stirring her tea absently. “Not yet.”

He met his mother’s gaze and saw her wistful, yet forlorn expression. “I’m not saying that you should stay because of me.”

“I can’t abandon you, son.”

“Neither can I,” his father said faintly.

Stubborn, the lot of them. Though, the tiniest part of him, still childlike and hopeful, was relieved. Hell was both worse and better off when you were with family.

Adriel had left briefly, returning with a tray, laden with something doled out into small bowls. He could smell the sharp sweetness of the cardamom from where he sat—it was kheer, rice carefully boiled in cream, milk and sugar, laced with spices.

“She was insistent on making something,” his mother smiled.

Uriel grinned as he dug in—always a fan of sweets. “You’re a great cook, sister. I might be tempted to go with you all if you can make this for me every day.”

She laughed, good-natured and a little embarrassed. “It’s not that difficult.”

She was right, kheer was quite simple—but its simplicity was comforting. He wouldn’t readily admit it as he dipped his spoon for another bite, but something as mundane as a rice pudding after a long, fraught day was somewhat blissful. In a rare, frivolous thought, he noted that she’d left out the dried fruit—there were pistachios and almonds sprinkled liberally, but not a hint of raisins or dates.

A loud crash sent him careening into reality again, and he instinctively went for the weapon at his side. Nearby, Adriel and Cyrus were similarly occupied, staring straight at the curtained doorway. Instead of the white face of a foreigner, they were soon greeted with the tense visage of one of the village priests, his skin reduced to the greyish, clammy and unnatural pallor of terror.

“You’ve got to come quickly,” his eyes were planted directly upon him. “The men are back, but there are Amestrians following.”

“By Ishvala,” his mother clutched at her scarf, tightening it around herself for security.

“Let’s go, Adriel,” Cyrus rose, bringing his protégée with him. “We’re coming to help. Is anyone injured?”

He could not protest, not now. Not when the enemy was upon their doorstep. Philosophical quarrels could wait until the invaders were dead in the dirt.

“There are some, but many are already dead,” the priest told them, leading them through dimly lit streets with haste.

“How many invaders are there?” he looked towards the melee, the sound of screaming and shooting pervading the cool night air.

“We can’t tell, maybe about fifteen.”

“Adriel,” Cyrus called. “You know what to do.”

The girl nodded, skidding to a stop mere feet away from the fighting—enough carnage had taken place for the nearby houses to have been set ablaze, illuminating the dreadful scene. She planted her palm into the sand, the characteristic sparks of alchemy crackling into the air, joining the snapping of flames. Like a sudden storm, torrents of wind began whipping the sand up, flowing in airborne rivers to their enemies, who soon doubled over from the stinging, hands to their eyes as they were momentarily blinded.

He took no spare moment to wonder at this—instead, using the time to disarm as many of the invaders as possible. The other priests followed him, joined by the civilians roused from sleep. His blade found purchase quickly, leaving bodies piled in his wake. Nearby, Cyrus was similarly engaged, his face wet with blood. They had to move quickly, dragging as many of their wounded away as the soldiers who were still standing began to regain their vision. Adriel was swiftly before them again, the leather band on her wrist sparking once more—the men before her were reduced to clawing at their own throats, as though grasping vainly for air. Her closed fist, glinting with her karambit met flesh, cutting guns out of hands, and then cutting throats. There were quite a few—but the priests quickly caught on, coming to her aid before any of them could fire a shot in her direction.

There was no telling how long they were engaged, but at the end, silence reigned—punctuated only by the sound of fire and the few moans from the wounded. Every invader lay motionless in the red sand. Cyrus was among the casualties, drawing his alchemical symbols into the floor and muttering under his breath. Only a few of the group had survived—the rest being priests and locals who were already here. Soon, more villagers would gather, hoping to find loved ones.

Someone yelled for a bucket brigade to be formed, but Adriel’s quiet voice cut them off.

“Stand clear of it,” she said, extending her arm towards the flames.  
  
No one sought to argue—they were too wary about the idea of alchemy to be too close. He was able to properly see the leather arm guard for the first time, adorned with an embossed alchemical symbol that he could not make sense of. It sparked again, and this time, it was as though the air rushed towards them, carrying heat and ash in a wave. The flames before her sputtered and died. She moved down the line, doing the same thing, her face covered with her scarf to ward off the sticky ash. When he came towards her, she was staring at the burned out houses, covered in soot and blood.

“It’s air alchemy,” she said. “I’ve always been good at it. I was able to take the oxygen away from the flames. You might get a little dizzy here because there’s a bit more in the atmosphere now.” She wiped her face with the scarf, her voice listless. “It’s a bit of a dirty trick, but it works the same with people. If you force the air from their lungs, they start choking. They end up too preoccupied to notice you coming right up to them.”

“Effective,” he said quietly. If this was the work of one alchemist, what would happen if a legion of them swooped down onto their small, isolated villages?

As though she was reading his thoughts, she looked up with a sad smile, “This isn’t even the worst of what I could learn to do. You can combine different kinds of alchemy,” she exhibited her other wrist, where another leather arm guard bore another symbol. “I haven’t gotten it completely in my control yet, but…” she broke off, her eyes darting to the bodies. “It’d be an easy avenue to mass murder.”

He was silent for a moment. “Didn’t you say alchemy was supposed to help people?”

“ _Alchemists_ are supposed to help people. Alchemy can be used however an alchemist chooses. Lots of it can help…but this,” she exhibited her wrists. “This was thought up with the intent to kill. Because we don’t have a choice.”

He knew that feeling himself. A life of priesthood, dedicated to serving the people and his god, but peppered with the knowledge that he was trained to take lives if need be. There was no helping those who were already dead.

He turned, and saw Kilea, her shaking voice morphing into loud shrieks as she collapsed near the corpse of her husband. Struck with rifle bullets before they arrived, he had bled out during the battle—there was nothing that they could have done.

Sometimes the only thing left was to swear revenge. To swear that no one would be left alive to perform this evil again.  
  
This is why he stayed.

 


	2. First Day in Hell: Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **CW for genocide**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Wow, it's been a while. Both this and my primary fic for Attack on Titan have been languishing for a bit >.>
> 
> On the up side, I finally submitted my MSc thesis! 21,000 words of my blood, sweat and tears, finally flung into the hellscape that is my faculty. 
> 
> So, to celebrate, I went on a writing binge. Can't wait to fully flesh out this fic, and all my others! 
> 
> \- Song by Arch Enemy!

_Day two: lived through  
_ _More culprits arrive  
_ _Every cage so crowded  
_ _How will we survive through the night?_

_Our kind - our existence lights the fire  
_ _Igniting hell on earth  
_ _Archangels bending crosses, hooked_

 _First day in hell  
_ _See the terror in abandoned gates...  
_ _Fear sunken eyes  
_ _Get the guards and walk a dozen paces, saturnine_

_Incarcerated without reason  
_ _Doomed by blood  
_ _Anti-venom for a poisoned nation_

_Our Birthright_

[Day eight]

“No one came back from that squad,” Hughes passed the letter across the table before draining his canteen. They had a short reprieve before they were deployed again and were to meet Colonel Grand to discuss their next move.

“That was twenty men,” he looked at his comrade, dark eyes serious. “They were supposed to be neutralising some already wounded combatants.”

“Looks like they got help.”  
  
“That’s one way of putting it,” Roy scoffed. “It might have involved Aerugo.”

“So blatantly?”

“It’s unlikely that they had a direct hand, I suppose,” he stared pensively at the worn table before him. “But they may have smuggled enough arms to these combatants—that’s no easy feat though. It’s still strange, since we’re so far from the border, but how else could an entire squad of heavily armed soldiers just _die_?”

“In any case, they’re still very much toeing the line that they’re not involved,” Hughes scoffed. “Unless the Ishvalans are hiding a couple large arms factories, I find that hard to believe.”

“Nothing we can do unless we find proof,” Roy sighed. “Of course, all the weapons we recover have no serial numbers.”

“Of course. That’d be too easy,”

When was anything ever easy in war? Even when a snap of his fingers immolated a block, there was simply a feeling of _unease_. As though the weight of each soul set ablaze had been added to his own. It was a trade of sorts—many lives being snuffed by the flames in exchange for a few soldiers living on. The guilt was still there, bubbling under his skin; he wondered absently what he’d been doing that day, if there was a chance that he could have gone with the squad. In an unwelcome rush, he saw the faces of some of the men. The wistfulness in their eyes when they thought of home, of loved ones.

“The fact remains that we’ve got to find out what happened,” Roy said. “If this gets out, it’ll rally the enemy and destabilize our troops.”

_And someone had to be punished for this._

      The entrance of the tent ruffled, yielding the impressive figure of Basque Grand; the men sprang to their feet, saluting momentarily before being waved off. He walked wordlessly across the dirt floor, gruffly slapping a map onto the table. The yellowed paper still had the confidential seal of the army upon it, and was full of intersecting lines, circles of varying colours spread across the landscape.

“Colonel Grand,” Hughes sidled over, “Is this what came in this morning?”

“It’s from the intelligence unit.” he said. “This is the route we think squad 13 took.” a large finger traced a dark blue line, leading to a small village.

“That’s a known hotspot for Ishvalan warrior priests,” Roy murmured. He and Hughes exchanged a glance; this disappearance was disturbing enough for morale, and thus they needed to act decisively. The priests were few and far between, but each one of them was capable of massive amounts of carnage. Most commanding officers ordered their men to kill them on sight. Roy and Hughes both knew what was coming.

“This is the last stand for this country,” Grand straightened up, his formidable height filling the tent to its ceiling. “We all move out tomorrow. The other State Alchemists in this unit are on the field. When they return, you brief them on this.”

“What’s our plan?” Hughes asked, taking a well-worn notepad from his uniform.

“A full-scale assault. I don’t care if they see us coming; no one is getting out of there alive.”

It seemed foolhardy on its face—to march in the daylight to take a village, but they knew better. Most battles were winding down, so all their State Alchemists would take part in this assault. It would be a massacre.

\----

      Adriel secured the pack before turning to the assortment of villagers before her. She had left one hand free for her weapon as always, feeling the almost perpetual exhaustion catching up to her. It took a toll, being on alert for so long. She still felt the hot blood on her hands, the jagged yielding of flesh under her blade. It was something that often took days to wear off.

“Is this everyone?”

There was a murmur of assent; Kilea was still despondent in her chair, unwilling to look at anyone around her. They had buried her husband that morning, and she was short on sleep. Cyrus, having returned with Uriel and his brother earlier, relayed their discussions with the rest of the priests and the village leaders.

 “We’re expecting retaliation as soon as they connect the village to that squad of soldiers,” Uriel said. His brother was surveying the villagers with keen eyes—as though searching for those who would not be able to make the journey. He instead found faces wracked with indecision and guilt. “You’re all right to leave.”

“We’re planning on making a two-day journey to Iunet,” Cyrus explained. “There are a few stops in between where we’ll find some rest. As we get closer to the ruins we’ll find more oases, so we won’t have to press on too far.”

“So, we’re going to flee from Iunet to Xerxes?” an elderly woman called Myra was the first to speak. “Is the town even standing?”

“As far as we know, it’s still fine,” Adriel nodded. “We’ll find camels in Iunet. The Amestrians aren’t going to set their army to cross that desert lightly,” she met the priest’s eyes. “I think you all should follow us when you get the chance.”

She knew that he was thinking of his parents when the pensive crease reappeared between his brows. “Once we’re able, we’ll abandon the area.”

      They would be a massive moving target when it came down to it—hopefully, however, there would be enough surviving priests to cover them all. It wasn’t worth it to ask if the smaller group would be able to make it without the two alchemists—if either stayed to help, there was a large chance that the first detachment would never make it to Iunet. The region was becoming more tumultuous, and every hand was needed—especially when one of those hands could decimate several enemies at once.

       After years of her own experimenting, Adriel was arguably more proficient in destructive alchemy, while her teacher was primarily a healer—though his grasp of air alchemy was excellent. In terms of her own healing ability, sprains, minor fractures and cuts were all she was comfortable dealing with—in the face of serious injuries she’d be useless. It took skill to kill people—but even greater skill to keep them alive. There was an understanding, however, that her time was better spent on her own research, stripping her of any opportunity to continue honing medical alchemy. Her progress as a warrior meant that if she stayed behind, the group would be far less defended—they had few able bodies and the others were only armed with old weapons. With the murmuring about State Alchemists destroying whole villages in the blink of an eye, splitting their forces was unconscionable.

      Later in the day, after a hurried lunch, they moved out. Adriel gave a small, weary smile to Uriel and his brother as they stood at the edge of the village. She’d endured the tearful goodbye of their mother a short time earlier, leaving a heavy feeling of dread on her heart. The old woman and her husband were very sweet people—if she could have, she’d have dragged them all the way to Iunet herself. But as things stood, she had to bite back the wistful hopes and cultivate her pragmatism—for all of them.

“Take care of yourself, Adriel,” Uriel was also carrying the weight of everything—the engulfing war coming to his doorstep, and the uncertainty of the future.

Each word felt as though it was stuck in her throat. “You too.”

His brother was still as grim-faced as ever, but there was a fleeting understanding in his eyes. “We will see you in Xerxes. Count on it, little alchemist.”

“I can’t wait to argue with you there,” a small moment of levity did wonders in the fog of war.

\----

“What are you thinking?” Hughes glanced across at his friend, who was busily staring off into the small oasis with a scowl.

“That this is playing dirty,” he sighed. “Granted, that really doesn’t have a meaning, now does it? Anyone who wants to get away from that village will have to pass through here, unless they want to die of thirst.”

“It does leave a bad taste in my mouth,” Hughes sighed. “Though, I’m glad that I’m not part of the assault on the place. I know we’re all going to end up hitting the last town, but there are some things…I just can’t get accustomed to seeing.”

      Roy could still feel the sticky heaviness of grease on his face from after a battle. The way that waxy human fat spread through the air after extreme heat…before it congealed over time, creating a film he couldn’t feel clean of, even after rubbing his skin raw. The first time he’d absently licked his dry lips, feeling the slick coating on his tongue—he’d vomited so violently that he was soon dry heaving in painful spasms for the better part of the evening.

“I hear something,” Hughes held up his hand, signaling for the group to stop. He and Roy rummaged through the sparse, craggy bushes—the former with a throwing dagger ready, and the latter with his glove already donned. The crisp smell of spring water was getting stronger, and so were the distinct murmuring of voices.

      They cut off all at once—someone had noticed the soldiers. It was useless to hide now, so Roy roughly pushed aside the boughs obscuring his vision, and then felt his heart drop. They were Ishvalans, but the group consisted of three women. One was heavily pregnant, shielded partially by an older woman, and what looked to be a teenager. The youngest stared defiantly back, her arm behind her as though reaching for a weapon.

He breathed the only word that came to mind. “Fuck.”

_I don’t want to do this._

“Roy,” Hughes murmured. “What’s your call?”

 _I don’t know_.

The group obviously wasn’t a threat to them—at least not the old woman and the pregnant one. The young woman was black-haired, rather unlike most Ishvalans, but had their distinctive red eyes. She made no move to close the distance, nor did she produce the weapon she seemed to be reaching for. There was a certain maturity—a calmness about her that told him this wasn’t her first confrontation. She knew that the mere glimpse of a blade or gun was enough escalation to spark a fight—and she wasn’t foolish.

“Let’s go.”  
  
“You’re sure,” Hughes sounded relieved. His eyes were fixed on the pregnant woman, the strain evident on his face.

“Yeah.”

They backed off slowly, but the young woman never took her eyes off them.

\----

“They’re already here,” Kilea was shaking, her hands pressed along her stomach nervously.

“Don’t worry yourself,” Myra, the old woman, cooed over her, petting her hair with wizened hands.

“She’s right, you can’t afford to worry yourself into labour here,” Adriel had finished filling their last waterskin, before taking a long draught from the stream herself. “We’ll get back to the others and let them know. Then we move out to Iunet. It’s just one more day’s walk.”

“Okay,” she got unsteadily to her feet, and walked through the brambles with uncertain steps.

Adriel calmed the hissing pulse in her ears with deep breaths; if those men hadn’t been surprised at finding them—if they hadn’t assumed that the women were not a threat…

She pushed the thoughts away. There was no need to overanalyze.

When they returned with the news, there were murmurings of confusion and panic among their ranks.

“This is bad,” Cyrus stared at the convoy with an expression that betrayed his worry.

“We don’t know that Iunet has fallen,” Adriel said calmly. “We would have heard it. Besides, there’s no smoke rising from that direction.”

“There are ways to sack a city without betraying your position,” Cyrus explained. “But you’re right, we don’t know that. We need to move quickly. I get the feeling those soldiers were ready to attack the village.”

She felt her heart drop. Uriel. The priests. Their parents.

Kilea was breathing heavily, but was putting on a brave face. Myra, an old widow from the village was patting her back absently, her own worries weighing on her wizened features.

They began walking, and Adriel cast a backwards glance to where the village would be. She didn’t believe in any gods, but if one was out there, she would plead with it to make sure they all evacuated safely.

\---

“The region is almost ours,” Hughes said. There was no triumph in his voice. Word had gotten through about their decisive victory at the village.

Roy thought of the three women as he stared down at the grotto. The once pristine spring was marred with blood and the ash of corpses. “I wonder how many casualties we had to inflict.”

“A lot. Kimblee was given full reign down there. The rest went off to join the fighting in Iunet. He’s planning on going down there to snuff out any troublesome survivors.”

“Iunet surrendered, didn’t it?”

“Bradley still wants it burned down,” he looked down at his gloved hands, clenched in frustration. “The people there are just sitting ducks. They can’t leave, and they don’t know what’s coming.”

“Why is he doing this?” Hughes kicked up the dirt at his feet.

“Word is that the head priest, the closest thing to a ruler the Ishvalans have—he tried to surrender. Bradley thinks they haven’t had enough yet. They need demoralisation to prevent any more uprisings.”

“Sir,” a young soldier was nearby, looking into the brush. “It’s true what they’re saying? That this is it?”

“Hopefully,” Roy answered. “They’re the last two places still standing.”

“So, it’s finally over,” the look of relief on his face was obvious, even in profile. “We can go home.”

It was a bittersweet feeling, but he could tell the bubbling anticipation in his own gut was overriding the fog of war. “Yeah.”

Their conversation came to an abrupt end as a messenger came into view. It was time to move out.

\----

      Adriel looked at the deserted streets with suspicion. There wasn’t a soul out and about, not even in the markets. Cyrus was similarly on edge. He walked to the temple of Ishvala and knocked. A wary eye appeared through the peephole, and the door opened a crack.

“I’m just a servant, sir,”

“I would like to speak to one of the priests.”

“They’re gone, sir.”

“Gone?”

Adriel pushed the door, sending the man flying back. “Explain what happened.”

The man was shaking. “The town gave them up. They wanted to save themselves, the Amestrians came at night and—and they took them—”

Her blood ran cold. “So where is everyone?”

“There’s a curfew. The Amestrians are hidden in the town senate, awaiting orders.”

“Teacher,” she turned to Cyrus, her face pale. “What do we do?”

He shepherded the others into the cramped entryway and shut the door.

“We have to wait it out. At least until we can locate the camels and be out of here.”

“Camels?” the man on the floor stared at them. “Where would you run?”

“To Xerxes,” he explained. “Can you help us?”

“I know where you can find some, yes,”

“Teacher,” Adriel nudged him quietly. “Why is he alone here if the priests are gone?”

“I was running errands when the Amestrians came,” he said, his voice cracking. “When I returned, everyone was gone.”

She didn’t buy it. How would the soldiers take a temple full of priests without a fight?

“Let me scout the town,” she looked at Cyrus. “I don’t trust this one.”

He sighed. “If something happens to you Adriel,”

“It’s better than being a passive target here. If there’s a curfew, why were we allowed to just waltz in?”

“You’re thinking that it’s a trap.”

Adriel nodded. “It has to be.”

\----

“Alchemists?”

The incredulous cry tore among their ranks like the cawing of a school of birds. The singed, burning remains of the village lay behind them.  
“The medical corps have looked over the recovered bodies of our men from a mass grave,” Basque nodded. “Many were killed by blades, but strangely enough, all had collapsed lungs pre-mortem. We took aside some of the villagers, and after some—questioning—they admitted that there was a group of travelling Ishvalans who passed by. Two were alchemists.”

“So what does this mean?” Kimblee was already bored after the siege, but the idea of more quarry sent a new glint into his eyes.

“I liaised with the Fuhrer, and he wants them captured. It seems they were headed to Iunet,” he explained. “The soldiers there have orders to subdue them while a detachment travels to the area; we have two vehicles we can spare that will brave the sand. The others will go on horseback.”

“What if we can’t capture them?” Isaac McDougal spoke in a low voice. His gauntleted hands were knitted together, his face openly showing his distaste. His approval of the war was short-lived.

“You are allowed to kill them, in that case,” he explained. “But if they are captured, there are bonuses and commendations for anyone involved.”

“What gives?” Hughes whispered.

Nearby, Riza Hawkeye gave them a sidelong glance, indicating that she too, was listening.

“Alchemists hoard their secrets,” Roy surmised. “They could want to find out what sort of alchemy the people of Ishval know. Ishvalan alchemists are an unknown quantity.”

“As a people, they’re generally wary of alchemy,” Hughes agreed.

“Exactly,” he said. “But this is going to cost soldiers. I’d expect that this late in the game, we’d let curiosity go and just focus on getting our men home. What’s so important?”

“Was there an indication that their alchemy was unique in some way?” Riza asked.

“Not that I know,” Roy glanced at the medical corps. “They’re being very tight lipped.”

“So, something’s up,” she sighed.

“Up above our pay grade,” Roy stared at the burning ruins.

\----

      Adriel stuck to the shadows, slinking from alleyway to alleyway. She wasn’t proud of the words she exchanged with the Temple servant, Jalim, but her suspicion rankled. Before she left, she’d backed him against the wall with the karambit at his throat.

“If you’re lying to me, I’m killing you first.”

Her voice was low enough not to carry to the next room, where the weary travelers were sipping on cups of tea, trying to conserve as much energy as they could.

He nodded frantically, clasping his hands together in a show of goodwill. It meant little.

      He said the camels were near the edge of the market, right after the spice stall. The whole place was silent, save for the sound of wind fluttering the canvas of tent ceilings. She caught the scent of sharp cinnamon, and the gamey smell of animals; as Jalim described, there was a large stable there. Horses neighed, and through the fenced wall, she could see the camels further back. Now all that needed to be done was the recovery. This would have to wait for nightfall, to be perfectly safe…but would they have the time? Iunet was a large enough town for them to pass as villagers, but small neighbourhoods would notice that they did not fit in. If Jalim was right, and the townspeople _did_ surrender their priests, they would be sure to point out the interlopers. She needed to find out more.

      The alleyway at the edge of the market was close to the town centre, where the senate was located. This was likely where any Amestrians were hidden—it would make it doubly difficult to take the camels without notice. Near the wall of the town centre, she caught a distinctive, semi-sweet smell that stuck to the back of her throat. It was the smell of corpses. She froze. She slowly put the karambit into her belt, replacing it instead with a longer khanjali*. Her footsteps echoed in her ears, grinding through the sand as she moved along the wall, her skin clammy and cold, despite the heat of the sun. The smell was getting stronger, whipped to and fro by the breeze. Peeping around the threshold of the main entrance, she caught a glimpse of a dark mound, haphazardly spilling from what used to be a decorative pool. Bodies, bloated and blackened, were piled high…as though they had been lined up repeatedly and shot. Similar stories had been told by traumatized survivors on their travels. Adriel stole herself and counted as many of the bodies within her line of sight, pulling her scarf across her face to staunch the smell. There were at least sixteen of them, with enough corpses below and adjacent to fill the whole pool, spilling over all around the perimeter. That was far too many. The temple held enough rooms and beds for six priests.

      The sound of a loud explosion sent her heart fluttering into her throat. In an instant, she broke into a run, not bothering to keep to the shadows. The sound had come from the direction of the temple. The few survivors of the first massacre were flooding the streets, scattering and screaming. They buffeted around her, obscuring her view. She pushed through them on the narrow street and saw a crowd of blue-clad figures near the building, taking cover. The group had engaged them with the old rifles, but it wasn’t enough. The building itself seemed to explode, its outer wall shattering outward and sending shrapnel coursing through the air. With a barely audible crackle, the transmutation circle on her arm shone, extending a wave of air that threw the incoming projectiles away. In the rubble, she could see figures moving. At the back, where half of a wall remained, Kilea was huddled with Myra, covered in dust.

“Get behind something!” she yelled. Nearby the Jalim was dusting himself off, scratched and maimed.

He had sold them out. The priests, his own people. It made sense now.

While the Amestrians tracked the fleeing villagers, she sprung towards the broken temple. Jalim had noticed her, and was turning to run, but he caught on a large piece of rubble. Her transmutation circle shone again, and the wind buffeted the broken wall before him. He could not move before it fell. She skidded to a stop near the two women and tugged at Kilea’s arm.

“Get up, we can’t stay here,”

They both stared at her, shaking in shock. She tugged her forcefully to her feet, with Myra following. Cyrus had dug himself from the remains of the building, and was engaging the soldiers. More explosions were punctuating the battle in the distance.

“A State Alchemist,” she breathed. She glanced at the terrified women. “Stay behind me.”

Her other gauntlet shone, and she extended the arm to catch a soldier unawares as he tried to move into a better line of sight. With a crack, he jolted and fell, unmoving. She pried the rifle out of his hands and gave it to Kilea.

“Use it if you have to,” she told her firmly, shepherding them into a nearby cottage. “Wait.”

Kilea looked back, her fear and pain through her dusty, tearstained face. The explosion likely caused her to go into labour.

Adriel cursed under her breath as she left the cottage. Cyrus was holding his own, but he was wounded. She sprinted back to the fore, her air alchemy sending the air from the soldiers’ lungs in a rush, leaving them panicked and incapacitated. There were at least seven of them. She took up one of the fallen handguns and shot each one. Cyrus was leaned against the wall, drawing a transmutation circle with the blood coursing down his arm.

“How bad is it?” she asked. She couldn’t keep looking at him—her gaze was frantically sweeping the place, searching for soldiers.

“It’s broken. I might have some internal injuries.”

 _Fuck. Fuck everything._ “Can you fix it?”

“I don’t know. Adriel, you need to leave.”

“Leave you here? Are you insane?” she glared at him, before resuming her watch.

“Leave everyone. You need to get to Xerxes. You’d be a help to any survivors, you can’t die here.”

“But Kilea and Myra—”  
  
“A pregnant woman and an old woman,” he said. “You won’t make it out of the town with them.”

“I’m not leaving them or you, so mend your fucking arm!” she yelled. Her temper was short, fraying under the betrayal, the sight of those piled corpses…

“I found them!” a voice called.

To the east, she could see a horde of blue uniformed men approaching. They hadn’t aimed their weapons yet, despite being within range. She drew the khanjali again and readied herself. Cyrus caught her hand, his own slick with blood.

“I will handle this, you need to go.”

“What?”

He planted a firm shove that sent her back. “Go!” He was off towards them at a run—she caught a glimpse of the circle on his robe, traced in blood. Those symbols. The words she screamed to him were drowned out. When he met the soldiers, there was another, blinding explosion. It threw her back into a nearby yard, and out of instinct, she activated her alchemy to ward off the gales of dust. Body parts and bits of uniform rained down.

Through the ringing in her ears, she could hear her own heart pounding. Her teacher was gone. She was alone. Someone was tugging at her, and she turned to see another blue-clad figure. The blade swung to his throat, and his grip loosened. She needed to get back to Myra and Kilea.

      The streets were covered in carnage. Every soldier she saw fell to her combination of air alchemy and her blade. The cottage was just up ahead, but she discerned the presence of group of Amestrians in front of it. They were laughing, pointing inside. A pool of blood seeped through the sand through the threshold. Every cell through her body screamed with rage. Her gauntlet crackled to life again, and she adjusted the grip on her blade.

\----

      Solf Kimblee let out a low whistle. This was the sort of carnage he had wanted to see when he enlisted. The streets were littered with the dead, and smoke rose into the sky, as though a celebration to the heavens about the pure, _powerful_ bliss of destruction. The first alchemist had gone out with a bang, so to speak. It seemed like he was using some similar version to his own alchemy—pity the man was in pieces, so he couldn’t talk about how he did it. The other one, more surprisingly, was a young woman. Currently, she was injured, lying in the dust surrounded by dead soldiers. He studied the leather gauntlets that the men gave him. It took two separate men to cut them off, and both died while doing it. Even after she’d lost the use of her alchemy, she was apparently _very_ handy with those blades. Most of the dead soldiers were cut up pretty badly—the one at his feet was basically cut right through his neck to the spine.

“Is she in any danger of dying?”

A soldier shook his head. “I don’t think so, sir. She took two handgun shots to the shoulder, but she doesn’t seem to be bleeding out.”

“Then why is she lying in the dirt? You’re all afraid of an injured woman?”

“Sir, she killed at least three men after she was shot.”

His smile widened. “My kind of girl,” he strode towards her, putting the torn gauntlets safely in his pack.

“Sir, I don’t think it’s safe—”

“Shut up, you goddamn coward.”

She was staring up at him, her breathing shallow. The knives were gone, and she was just holding onto her injured arm with the other. Red eyes held distaste, tempered by pain, and what was probably a fair amount of blood loss.

“You did a decent job, kid,” he bent over so that he could scoop her out of the blood and gore that surrounded her. “Unfortunately, the powers that be wanted me to keep you alive, so I can’t finish the job. Maybe one day.”

She said nothing, continuing to stare at him, tense in his arms. He took her to the medical tent, humming to himself he entire way.

“Ah, Dr. Marcoh. They took you out of the labs? I have a patient for you,” Kimblee smirked. The old man stared at him in open disgust. “Can’t let her die, she’s apparently a valuable resource to the Fuhrer.”

He placed her on a camp bed, cuffing her in place with a pair of sturdy, steel restraints. Kimblee rose, patting her hair before leaving, still humming cheerfully all the while.

“What’s your name?”

Her eyes turned to Dr. Marcoh, full of venom.

“I’m Dr. Tim Marcoh,” he continued, inspecting her wounds. “This might sting a little.”

She didn’t flinch at the feeling of alcohol—her body was likely going into shock.

“I am sorry,” he said. “For what happened today. You didn’t ask for this.”

She didn’t say anything. She was just looking ahead, as though she could see through the tent, to where all the bodies lay.

He produced a crimson stone, considering it for a second, and its glint caught her eye. He pocketed it again and proceeded to continue inspecting her wounds.

“What is that?”

“Oh, you can speak,” he said. “Nothing you need to concern yourself with. I’m going to get you some antibiotics and a painkiller before I start bandaging this. We’ll save the alchemy for later, when I can keep a better eye on your progress.”

Adriel continued to look at him, the pain of her shoulder prickling through in waves as the adrenaline wore off.

\----

“What in the world…”

“It’s done, sir,” a soldier saluted Roy as he passed by. The horses were slow in the heat and sand, taking them a full four hours to get to Iunet.

“I can see that,” he said irritably. “What happened?”

“Our special detachment took up here about two days ago, took care of the priests and some agitators with the help of a turncoat. The plan was to wait out here for the escaping Ishvalans, but then we got word about the two alchemists, so we ended up shifting goals,” he explained. “They put up a fight.”

That was an understatement. Bodies were strewn about, most with blue uniforms. Some Ishvalans were in the mix, but he was unaccustomed to seeing so many of his men dead like this.

“One alchemist is dead, he ran into a group over there,” the man pointed to a crop of destroyed buildings. “Blew himself up.”

At his feet, there was a soldier with his jaw all but taken off, as though someone had shoved a lengthwise blade up into the hinge where it met his neck. Each soldier surrounding the corpse was similarly cut up, some with wounds to arms—probably to get their weapons—and some with wounds to their legs. Probably to keep them from fleeing.

“Who did this?” the tiring journey, the sudden deluge of corpses—it was fueling a rage within him. It was something to kill people like this. Very few could be up close and personal, feeling the life drain out of people with their own hands.

“Other alchemist. Kimblee dropped ‘em off at the medical tent—”

Roy walked off stiffly, glancing at every blue-clad body along the way. The cleanup had commenced, so most of them were being laid out in neat lines. Each one of those men would never get back to their families. Even their remains would be delayed, with most tagged and buried in large graves to be exhumed later, when the fighting had ceased, and the lines of communication were clear. Some he recognised—if not by name, by their faces. Tired, war-worn and ready to go home. This was supposed to be the final battle. _They could have made it._

The young soldier who had asked him about their return was lying off to the side, pale and unmoving.

      He pushed aside the flap of the medical tent, searching for the object of his ire. Dr. Marcoh looked up from his work, disapproving.

“Roy? I thought I told that useless boy outside that no one else was supposed to come in here? I have parade of gawkers that get in the way.”

“They needed everyone for the cleanup,” he said grimly. “There’s no one out there.”  
  
“Of course they did,” he sighed. “Bloody mess they’ve made.”

He moved aside for something, giving him a view of the other alchemist. She was staring at him, bloodied and covered in dirt, her red eyes shining with hatred. It was the girl from the spring.

“She did all that?” he asked.

“What?” Marcoh gave him a glance, still stitching at her wounds.

“There is a squad of dead men out there.”

“Well, she’s an alchemist,” he said dryly. “They sent you out there to commit mass murder, didn’t they? How many people can you kill on a good day?”

His clenched fists were creaking against the cloth of his gloves. She was still looking at him, unafraid to meet his eyes. Nothing good would come out of him staying there. Either Marcoh would kick him out or he’d do something stupid and get himself court-martialed. He pushed out of the tent, and moved towards the town centre, were more of the surviving soldiers were gathered.

      The stench of decay was like a miasma. Someone was drenching a pile of rotting corpses with oil, his face covered to ward off the cloying smell.

“Oh, Major,” a soldier saluted. “Great timing. Can you help us out? We can’t leave ‘em piled up here to stink up the place.”

He looked at the featureless, bloated bodies. There wasn’t even the option of telling which ones were men or women. He extended a hand, snapping his fingers together. They were engulfed in flames in an instant—the accelerant sending a pillar of fire shooting up into the sky.

“That’s great sir,” he thanked him. “We have one more, over here,”

Nearby, were the bodies of the recently deceased Ishvalans. Two caught his eye. Hughes was already there, staring down at the corpses silently. One woman was at the edge of the pile, her eyes slightly open. She was young, pretty, despite how grey her skin was in death. She was also obviously pregnant. Next to her was that of an old woman—the same one who was desperately shielding her younger companion from view the day before.

“They couldn’t say who shot her,” Hughes said. “Might’ve been a few of those guys laid out on the tarps down there,” he jerked his head towards the street. “Is this what we’ve become?”

He thought of the young woman’s face. Her shining eyes, full of loathing. He had wondered what sort of beast could cut into so many people. How such savagery was possible.

He probably should have asked what could create such hatred.

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tough chapter, right? Basically I channeled all my weeks learning about genocide in gradschool into this. This is actually what got me into FMA, as it was on my to-watch list for literally almost a decade. 
> 
> We'll get out of the angst...some day xD
> 
> * A khanjali is a long, double-edged dagger.


	3. To Hell And Back

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm finally back to writing this fic (and finishing this chapter to post on my birthday, no less lolol)
> 
> For the past month or two my life has basically been on fire thanks to family tragedy. The good news is that writing helps.
> 
> I hope everyone enjoys the chapter--it's more investigating how the war has affected everyone in the direct aftermath. I always wondered how everyone dealt with it, so this was great to write.
> 
> The song is by Sabaton :)

_Oh, gather round me  
_ _And listen while I speak  
_ _Of a war  
_ _Where hell is six feet deep_

_And all along the shore  
_ _Where cannons still roar  
_ _They're haunting my dreams  
_ _They're still there when I sleep_

_He saw crosses grow on Anzio  
_ _Where no soldiers sleep  
_ _And where hell is six feet deep  
_ _That death does wait  
_ _There's no debate_

_He charged and attacked  
_ _He went to hell and back_

[Day Ten]

      The numbness was receding, leaving only a sick, defeated feeling in its wake, coming to a fever pitch any time someone jostled her, with pain searing through the shoulder they’d shot her in. Her home was gone again. After the battle, the scenery was full of carnage as they moved until they left Iunet. Hot waves of desert air met their convoy, the undulating sands their only company up until a garrison of Amestrians met them, barricaded behind sandbags and trenches. They murmured amongst each other and passed around the gold that had been pilfered, some dared to come close to stare. None ventured too near—but their distaste was obvious. She was the person who killed their comrades. They were the men who destroyed everything she had.

      Some were bolder and looked into her tear-stained eyes as though she was an object of some exotic origin—but Dr. Marcoh had batted them away. She had warmed to him a little—his dry, humourless voice and his standoffish nature. Though he was involved in this war, he seemed to loathe it. The rest of the men, though, carried relief on their faces. Around her, they still carried that levity, but they were cautious, their brows knitting together as they weighed the threat before them. She was untied, then summarily handcuffed to another iron bed, and this time, she was blindfolded. Someone re-bandaged the wound and then tried to feed her scraps of stale bread with water.

      That day, word came that the war was formally over; everyone would be sent back to their homes for debriefing. Through her despondency, she noted that Dr. Marcoh came in again and decided it a good day to use his alchemy on her wounds—he would soon be called back to his lab, to finalise his experiments during the war. She could see the sparks from behind the blindfold, and the strange, almost hot-and-cold feeling of alchemy spread through her wound, numbing it. The dizziness and weakness was catching up, and as consciousness slipped away, the rocking world seemed to lull her to sleep with promises of dreamlessness and relief.

\----

“Dr. Knox,” Roy greeted the pathologist with his customary politeness.

The doctor did not look up from his work; his face was obscured by his medical mask and goggles. The body before him was different than usual—rather than an Ishvalan, he was autopsying one of their own.

“What do you want, Mustang? Come to admire someone else’s handiwork?”

“Call it curiosity,” he replied. And that was it, really. They had all crowded around the alchemist’s confiscated armbands, dissecting the symbols and theorising. But, what they needed was the information from Knox—who dissected the bodies.

“This one died of electrocution,” Dr. Knox’s voice was dry. Unfeeling. This had become routine, and in the end, when the person lying on the table ceased to matter, his job was a _lot_ easier. “I’d wager she hit him with somewhere around a hundred milliamperes to stop his heart—I can’t be sure precisely, but it couldn’t have been extremely high. There’s a mild burn on the point of contact, and at grounding,” he exhibited the bottom of the soldier’s feet, where decayed remains of blisters were visible.

“So, we were right, it’s some kind of electrical alchemy,”

“Unless she’s carrying around a live wire, then yes, you were right. Congratulations,” the doctor replied sarcastically. Neither of the two most prestigious military doctors seemed to like him much. The Hero of Ishval’s reputation was something they were acutely familiar with, in their line of work. Perhaps it was the pageantry attached to the taking of life that they were averse to—it fed their guilt and offended the part of them that made them choose medicine. They’d gotten themselves mixed up with the wrong government, in that case.

“The others?”

“Most had collapsed lungs pre-mortem, but the actual causes of death vary,” Dr. Knox withdrew from the corpse, gesturing with his elbow to the pile of bodies on gurneys. The stink of formaldehyde was strong, with the undercurrent of decay—most had been dug up from their temporary graves and embalmed after their autopsy. “Some of them bled out from lacerations, mostly to the carotid region. Cuts were usually very deep, sometimes resulting in partial decapitation. Some had defensive wounds, or lacerations to the calcaneal tendon in the back of the leg. A few were killed by gunshot wounds to the head. These were less uniform and were very close range. I’m guessing she’s not used to firearms.”

Roy was murmuring to himself now, staring pensively at the bodies. “Air and electricity.”

“She had grit,” he surmised. “Grisly though it is, she was efficient. I don’t think any of them suffered unduly.”

He thought of the soldier at Iunet, his jaw almost severed. “What counts as ‘suffering unduly’?”

“These are some of the least dragged out deaths I’ve worked on. Given what the Ishvalans have gone through,” Dr. Knox explained dryly. “I would think anything short of all out torture would be generous. But you can calm down. Most of them died very quickly after their carotid arteries were cut. Some had more injuries—probably from an active confrontation, but the blood loss would have put them into shock quickly. It’s not like she stabbed them haphazardly and left them to bleed for hours. I don’t entirely know why you’re interrupting me for this, you could have accessed the report if you waited.”

“I’m impatient,” he answered. It was honest, if a bit simplistic. He needed to understand what the men went through, for his own fragile peace of mind. Hughes had gone back to his fiancée, Riza had gone off to her leave and he was stuck, getting heapings of praise and having to plaster a smile on his face until he and the other State Alchemists wrote a report on the Iunet incident.

“Well, now you know. What are they planning to do with her?” Dr. Knox was curious at last. “I noticed that I wasn’t booked for any other autopsies, so she’s still alive.”

“For now,” Roy explained. “I don’t know what the plan is. I’ve heard through the grapevine that the Fuhrer is interested in _recruiting_ her as a part of her sentencing.”

There was a glint of dark understanding in the doctor’s eye, quickly hidden by the glare on his goggles. “Sounds like him. Don’t look so surprised. Other countries have put prisoners in their armies before. We used to.”

“Yeah, but those were thieves and in rare cases, a few manslaughter cases; who has more grudges against the state than the survivor of an ethnic cleansing?”

“As an alchemist, she probably wasn’t your traditional Ishvalan rebel, not like the priests,” the doctor noted. “And people have been known to change their tune when they have nothing left.”

He had the sudden, unwelcome vision of Heathcliff—another Ishvalan that he once knew. From a steadfast cadet—to aiming a gun at former comrades, seething with betrayal and anguish.

Sometimes, when he closed his eyes, he could still see the look on Heathcliff’s face. The pain in his chest still rankled.

Vengeance wasn’t something that fizzled out easily; it burned like napalm.

\----

[Day Eleven]

“What did you find out?” Fuhrer Bradley accepted the wax-sealed report with a thoughtful look.

“Marcoh puts her in early adulthood—she confirmed this verbally by saying she will be eighteen in about two months. She’s a runt of a thing, barely a hundred pounds and shorter than we’d usually accept for female recruits,” the soldier paused as though unable to adequately describe the spectacle before him. “The fact remains that she managed to kill a lot of our men before she was subdued. Her armbands are enclosed here; the other alchemists have taken a look at them, and they’re collaborating with Dr. Knox for a full report which should get to you by this week.”

 “Good. Where is the girl now?”

“In a cell,” the soldier said with confidence. “We put her next to Kimblee.”

“Is there any chance of turning her?”

“We’re not sure, Fuhrer,” he said hesitantly. “She hasn’t been aggressive so much as despondent since we’ve taken her. We haven’t heard her speak a word. I think she talks to Marcoh, but there’s nothing substantial.”

“Send one of the State Alchemists to try,” he ordered. “If it doesn’t work, then we will execute her. She won’t be of any use otherwise.”

“Sir.” the soldier saluted again. He paused with his hand on the doorknob before opening it. “If I may, how has the rest of the country been?”

The Fuhrer smiled. “Our State Alchemists have done their job. The feeble vestiges of resistance are no match for them.”

As the soldier left, a woman’s silhouette came into view from the shadows. She pushed back her dark hair, amused. “I know we seem to be accumulating many prospective sacrifices, but would you really kill her if she doesn’t join?”

“I’ve got to walk a fine line between furthering our ends and ensuring that there are no complications. Kimblee alone will take an entire battalion of them to keep in check, if he ever decides he wants to leave. Putting another time-bomb in the same place would be foolish.”

“Then you’ll have to hope Mustang doesn’t do something stupid and die in the next few years,” she surmised. “Or that the Armstrong man suddenly becomes extremely adept at a wider range of alchemy.”

“She’ll join us,” Bradley spoke with confidence. “With Ishval gone, she’s a weapon without an arm to hold it. She needs something to live for—and something dear enough to make her behave. We’re going to provide that.”

\----

[Day sixty-five]

“Dr. Marcoh,” Adriel looked him with mild surprise. “What is all this?”

“A condition for my discharge,” he replied bitterly.

“They tell me your name is Adriel Lockheed,” the second man before her was comically large—in fact everything about him seemed just a little bit dramatic. From the immaculate little tuft of hair on his otherwise bald head, to the way he swept into the room like a performer.

“It is,” she said quietly. Many months had passed—she wasn’t sure how many, but she’d lost some of her edge. It was hard to remain lost in herself and silent when few people were allowed to see you. The alchemist they locked up next to her, Kimblee, was strange companionship. He was quite nihilistic—he seemed to care only about the ways he could destroy things.

      A month before, the first alchemist to visit was Isaac McDougal. He spoke to Kimblee first, the latter of whom was not interested in hearing the whispered urgings of their visitor. When he turned to Adriel, his haggard, tired face was thrown into stark relief by the harsh lights. That was when he had asked her to consider enlistment. A commuted sentence, he explained. There was something in his eyes that held back—as though there was a hidden meaning to his parroted patriotism that she wasn’t getting. Her dreams had been tormented with memories of the open landscape, her old life. She hadn’t seen the sun in a long time. But no—this was yet another trap. The idea of being a turncoat…she saw Jalim’s face—the bodies he had been responsible for piling up—his own comrades…

She refused. So, they sent another. And another. Next to her cell, Kimblee laughed each time.

“They really do know how to go after what they want. It’s nice to be in the spotlight, isn’t it, little Ishvalan alchemist? I’m sure it’s because you’re prettier than me.”

      The room they’d placed her in today was far more comfortable than the prison, but it was all very suspicious. This was the second time she found herself among strangers, unawares. After her parents had died of illness, that wandering tribe had found her, barely clinging to life. Several years later, and she was again, without family and clinging to this existence.

“I am Major Alex Louis Armstrong,” he bowed graciously. He was _sparkling_. “Do you know why we’re here?”

“I don’t even know why I’m here,” she said dryly. “I thought the idea was that all of the Ishvalan combatants would be killed? I assume they’ve sent you,” she jerked her head at the doctor, “to do what the others couldn’t.”

“Well,” Alex trailed off. His face was an amalgamation of things—guilt, trauma, and something she couldn’t place. “I won’t sugar coat it. They did want to get rid of all the ones who were willing to fight. The goal was the decimation of the Ishvalan people, and the country.”

“I appreciate the honesty,” she said. Her red eyes were cold.

Dr. Marcoh sighed. “You were kept alive because you were an alchemist.”

“So you all keep telling me. Why?”

“The Fuhrer doesn’t want to see a brilliant mind snuffed out in this war. State Alchemists are rare. Your prowess in air and lightning alchemy is nothing we’ve seen,” Alex explained

 “So, you figured out it was lightning. If you got that much from the transmutation circles, why keep me alive?”

“You must know it’s one thing to understand the symbols and what they’re attempting, and another to actually pull it off.” He pulled the untouched tea cart towards them and poured three cups. . He daintily took a sip of tea, the fine china dwarfed by his huge hand.

“So what?”

“So, he wants you to become an Amestrian citizen,” Alex explained slowly. “Join the army as a State Alchemist.”

She looked at the two of them incredulously and burst out laughing. “You still want to make me a turncoat? This is what, the fifth time?”

The dreams of freedom had become more tempting, but she warded them off. No. She would stay in that little cell, with Kimblee for company until they decided to kill her. What else was there? What other principles could there be?

_You need to survive, Adriel._

Her Teacher’s voice haunted her. This was not what he had meant.

“I want you to survive,” Dr. Marcoh said seriously. Echoes of the voice in her nightmares.

Alex put aside his cup, his face serious. “Listen. No one is eavesdropping here; this is my private residence. We can speak freely,” he implored, “It’s asking a lot, but you need to trust us on this. To prove my honesty, let me tell you a little about myself; I…” he took a deep breath. “I was a coward. Or rather, I was branded as one. I didn’t like killing innocent civilians. So, I was sent off the battlefield.”

Her expression was sceptical, but she didn’t move to interrupt him.

“I was sent home in disgrace—because I didn’t think this was what being an Amestrian was supposed to be. I brought the Armstrong name into public disrepute. It may have been the wrong decision, because in the end, I was one man—the war went on without me, and I could do nothing. But this is something I can do. I couldn’t save people in Ishval, and I couldn’t stop the massacres. I realised that I needed to try when they were asking State Alchemists to take you in. I was the last—if no one else came forward, you would be executed. I wanted to give you a shot at life. It might be a bit selfish, but I can save at least one person.”

She turned from the Alex to face Dr. Marcoh, “Why would I take this?”

“You’re better off alive. If you refuse they will kill you and the next thing I know, both I and Dr. Knox will be cutting you into little bits.”

“Adriel, I could tell you it’s about making a new life, and there’s something in that. But there is also something bigger. If you want to change Amestris,” Alex said, looking her right in the eye. “You can do that from the inside, much easier than as a corpse, or as a rebel.”

She wasn’t convinced. The primal part of her that wanted _freedom_ was faltering, but she forced it down.  “I’m one person. And in the meantime, I’d have to do the bidding of your genocidal Fuhrer.”

“You’re one among many who went through that war and want to see change,” Alex explained. “You were just on a different side—one that no longer exists. Make a new side. Agree to this for now and choose life. What good would dying do?”

 _It would end the suffering. The guilt for being here when everyone else was dead._ How could she think of the future when the present was so difficult? Each minute alive was agony. Freedom from her cell would not mean freedom from guilt—where an hour spanned as though it were a day.

What was a painful death, when compared to that?

“I don’t know how to make another side out of this.”

“You won’t be alone. I for one, am with you. There is also an Ishvalan in the army,” he said. Her sharp eyes met his again. “He’s in my sister’s employ, in Briggs. Maybe you want to speak to him.”

“Are there any others left?”

“None in the military, after the purge, but I don’t know about the civilians. Word is that there are some ghettos cropping up.”

“Then why is he there, and not with his people?”

“You can ask him, but I imagine it’s the same reason I gave you. He wants to live, and he wants to change this country. Ask him yourself, but you have to agree to what I’m offering.”

 _Live_. There it was again. Cyrus had implored her to live. To make it to help the survivors. She couldn’t go to Xerxes, she wasn’t even sure if anyone was alive there. This felt like betrayal. Yet—could she suffer through the present to change things in the long run? Was this the way?

“I have to think about it.”  
  
“You don’t have the time, I’m afraid. This was your last day.” Alex looked at her, genuine concern across his face. “It takes nothing out of you to agree. I will handle the rest. Your abilities would be wasted six feet under.”

Adriel paused. If she were to do this—if she could make it through her conscription, she’d be a free woman. She could try to fix things. If all else failed…

She’d take as many of them with her as she could. If Bradley was involved, all the better.

“So, if I agree, what happens?”

“You will stay here, in this residence. It will be under my authority and responsibility, and you’ll be under probation for the rest of the year. When you are well, it is stipulated that you will be sent to my sister in Fort Briggs as a State Alchemist. If you survive Briggs, and a conscription of six years, you will have earned your new life, free from being a prisoner of war.”

Of course, they would send her as far away from Central as possible while they figured her out. This would be a long game. Adriel thought of the last newspaper a guard had given her, complete with the Fuhrer’s face, which proclaimed a resounding victory. She’d spent hours thinking of how she could kill him—how she could make him suffer. She needed time.

“Fine then. But don’t you have suspicions about me?” she asked. “Why would you let me stay with you, after you’ve heard about what I’ve done?”

“I’ve done worse,” Alex admitted. “You killed combatants. I killed innocent people. I know how it destroys a person to commit atrocities when you’re fundamentally a good person.”

He felt guilt. But he followed his orders anyway. How many were like him? Powerless. Unwilling.

Marcoh laughed. “We’ve perpetrated some of the most heinous crimes upon this earth, girl. We have no right to judge you. We gave it up, along with every inch of spine we had left.”

“You don’t think I have a grudge against Amestrians?”

Alex seemed unmoved by the suggestion. “Do you?”

She was silent for a moment. It was easy to say yes—the idea of Amestris was one of repression, genocide and corruption. However, under that monolith, were people. The ones like Dr. Marcoh, well-meaning, suffering and immensely guilty. There were the ones like Kimblee, with his psychopathic nihilism—but even he was hard to pin down. Polite, witty, but at the same time, he lavished himself in the idea of destroying as much as he could. What he did was not out of hatred for them, he was just given free reign to live out his chaotic dream. Isaac was troubled as well—something about him reminded her of her own grit—she hadn’t wanted to admit it then, but he seemed to be enticing her to take the opportunity, just like Alex was.  There were likely more people, just as varied as these, some not wholly innocent, but simply complicit. Others too young or too marginalised to have had as say. Her direct vengeance laid with the head of their military government…but playing the long game effiiciently also meant changing the game itself.

Finally, Adriel let out a long sigh. “I don’t hate the people, just what Amestris stands for. The core of this country is corrupted.”

“On that we can agree. Then I have nothing to fear from you,” he extended a large hand. She took it cautiously, and found it warm—rough around the edges as though used to immense physical labour. It felt familiar—like Cyrus’.

“I hope you will find it in your soul to not curse us for this,” Marcoh said. He looked deeply unhappy about the proceedings. “Because we may have saved your life for now, but we have not saved you from this hell.”

A new resolve buried itself deep—she would field whatever they threw her way. As a penance for her failure, she would endure the pain of living, and she would carve out the rotten heart of Amestris.

Or she would die trying.

\----

“So they’ve finally stolen you away, pretty alchemist,” Kimblee was grinning at her.

Surprisingly, the military allowed her a final visit with him, before her official probation at the Armstrong manor would begin. “You never did tell me what they put you in here for,”

“Oh, didn’t I? I blew up some of my _superiors_ ,” he explained, the last word carrying a sense of venom. “But they were weak. They should have seen it coming.”

In a sense, it should have given them some common ground—yet she couldn’t fathom the depth of this man’s obsession with absolute carnage. “And you’re okay with staying here?”

“What, will you miss me? I’m content for now,” he smiled wistfully. “I have lots of memories to tide me over a few years. When they need some dirty work done, you’ll see me again. They’ll dust me off, take me out of storage and I’ll get to have some fun.”

Adriel stared. “You seem confident of that.”

“I’m a good judge of people, sweetheart,” he continued. “I know they’re weak. The ones who call the shots are only interested in preserving their old, scrawny necks. They can’t fight for the things they want, so that’s where we come in. They don’t throw away the toys they might want later. They just put them away where no one else can steal them.”

It was a good analysis, despite the bloodlust in his eyes as he spoke. Adriel considered him for a second. He was perhaps, her first Amestrian friend—if you could call him that. It was strange; he was reprehensible to the very fibre of his being—but he’d killed soldiers and civilians alike. Yet, he held no ill-will to her people because of who they were. He was a simple man: just liked killing things. Given their extended isolation, that quickly became something she could look past out of curiosity, for a quiet conversation. She held no illusions of who Solf Kimblee was—that would have taken more desperation than she held. Kimblee was a textbook monster.

The frightening part was how complicated this was—it was becoming easier to see eye to eye with him as time passed. Maybe in a year, she wouldn’t even class him as a monster at all.

Isolation was a hell of a thing.

“You should get going,” he walked up to the bars, and the soldier on watch tensed. “But when I get out,” a cuffed hand held hers through the bar in a gentlemanly way, as though he was introducing himself. “I’m going to come find you, pretty alchemist. I really did want to see what you were made of.”

Adriel met his gaze. Still a monster. “I hope you like the taste of metal, Kimblee.”

\----

The Armstrong manor was gigantic. They had placed her in a sitting room before, but this time, a slightly skittish maid showed her up several flights of stairs and down countless corridors to a bedroom. It was opulently decorated, complete with cool marble floors, stylish rugs and ornate decorations on wallpaper. The whole thing was probably bigger than the priest’s house in Ishval.

“This is my _room?”_ she couldn’t help it—her voice carried a note of disgust.

“Yes, miss,” the maid seemed to quake in her boots a little. “Is something the matter?”

“It’s ridiculous. Is this how these people live?” Her idea of a bedroom was a bedroll on the sand. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d lived in one place.

“The Armstrongs are a very noble family, miss,” she explained. “This is normal for them.”

“I don’t even think the Ishvalan leader lived like this,” Adriel noted, placing a hand on the quilted bedsheets. It probably cost a fortune all on its own.

“Um, I’m also supposed to show you your new things,” the maid twisted uncomfortably, showing a set of double doors. “Your clothing is in there. Major Armstrong accessed your military file and had everything made very quickly.”

Adriel paused, staring at the doors. This was overwhelming.

“Dinner is at seven this evening, miss,” the maid bowed. “I’ll be back to help you dress.”

The door closed with slightly more haste than was necessary for politeness’ sake. Adriel’s first move was to lock it behind her, before slowly exploring the expanse of her new quarters. It held its own bathroom—which was also needlessly extravagant—along with a closet that held more clothing than one person could hope to wear. She assumed by the huge number of varying styles that Alex had just asked for some of everything, as he had little idea what Adriel would prefer wearing.

Her suspicions were battling with the small ember of gratitude—she’d been ill-treated for so long, any dignity was precious, but _this_ was on another level. She knew that the scars from the war would affect the way she saw the world, but she was unsure of what was right. Was she to distrust everything? Or was she to give in to that feeling of gratitude? In an instant, she saw images of corpses—relived the feeling of hot bullets searing through her flesh—they made things easy for now. She dragged a chair from the dresser and lodged it under the door handle for good measure.

With carefully cultivated relief, she retired to the bathroom, stripping off her worn, filthy clothes.

\----

Hughes was drunk.

The pileup of bottles and glasses before him slowly began dwarfing the man himself, and soon, Roy had to forcefully pry the next whiskey from his hands. He seemed far gone, long before Roy had arrived.

“Did you have to indulge him that much?”

His aunt gave her gravelly laugh, looking unpityingly at the spectacle. “He looked like he needed to get completely smashed, so why stop him?”

Roy drained the glass himself, knowing that if he’d spilled it over the bar or the floor, Madam Christmas would likely use her cigarette to set it, and by extension her nephew, on fire.

He winced at the rushing heat and shook his head at his friend. “What in the hell is wrong with you, Hughes? We were supposed to be celebrating your marriage and all that, now that the war is done.”

Hughes gave a low groan onto the table under his face. His voice was muffled, but still slightly audible. “Gotta message. S’that girl alchemist. She’s in the army now.”

Roy felt the pleasant glow from the alcohol extinguished. “So, something got through to her.”

“S’not the point. I keep—having nightmares about that woman whose body we helped burn. Except insteada her, it’s Gracia.”

It was Roy’s turn to groan at this. Of course. There were some things that would haunt you, down to the happiest times of your life. No doubt the news, along with the thought of raising a family were too much in combination.

“I woulda done the same thing Roy,” he slurred. He looked up at his friend, red-eyed. “Woulda killed them all too. And it hurts to know that. I though’ we left this over there—I wanted to just smile around her—I _promised_. But now I keep thinkin’ of how I’da ripped people to shreds if I was in that alchemist’s spot.”

The characteristic self-loathing in his voice wasn’t new to his friend; it was the norm. It became harder and harder to justify yourself—to not _hate_ yourself when you could understand the people you were told to exterminate. He’d give a year of his salary to have that girl executed with the other combatants—not because she deserved it, necessarily, but to give them all peace of mind. To erase the reminder of what they saw that day, on their way to freedom from the war.

It was selfish, but surviving an unjust war was an inherently selfish thing.

He scooped his friend off the counter, shoving his hand into his pockets to extract his wallet. Madam Christmas tutted disapprovingly and waved him off.

“Consider it a gift for not coming back in a box.”

By the time he’d dragged Hughes out the door, his friend was basically asleep, murmuring incoherently about baby names and excuses for his actions in Ishval. It was acutely horrifying in ways that few other things were, if he was being honest. A taxi unwillingly stopped for him, and after assuring the driver that Hughes would not vomit all over his upholstery, he set off for the new apartment. He made up explanations for Gracia in his head, but instead, he decided on the truth. Someone needed to take care of the drunken lump, and she needed to know what he was going through, even in the most minute way.

Getting him up the stairs was a chore, and Roy was certain that Hughes would find more than a couple new bruises when he woke up. Several residents were milling about, looking strangely at the pair as he murmured hasty apologies and smiled awkwardly through it all. A mixture of relief and dread hit as he knocked on the door of Hughes’ apartment. It opened soon enough; Gracia’s face rapidly changed from joy to concern, stepping back immediately for Roy to bring her husband in.

“What happened to him?”

“Drunk as a fish,” Roy planted him onto the couch as gently as he could, rolling him onto his side. “He had a tough evening.”

“Tough?” Gracia ducked into their small kitchen, filling a glass of water for Roy, and bringing a wet towel to place on her husband’s head.

“He…remembered some very bad things from the war,” he decided against too much detail. “Lots of our work wasn’t cut and dry, and we have a lot of regrets…and a lot of things that won’t leave us.”

“I see,” she patted Hughes’ arm absently. “He hasn’t talked to me about what happened in Ishval. I wish he would…because I want to understand.”

“I know,” he sighed. “But it’s hard. Take it from someone who was there too. I barely know how to make sense of the whole thing. I wouldn’t know how to talk about this to someone who wasn’t there, even if I had years to figure it out.”

“What should I do?”

“I wish I could say,” Roy rubbed at tired eyes. “Just be there when he needs you. Because I think having to talk to you about everything would kill him right now.”

Gracia looked at him, misty-eyed. “Just what did they make you do out there?”

“Nothing we weren’t willing to,”

They passed the rest of the time in silence.

\---


	4. Forgive me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Thanks so much for the comments, I really appreciate that people are taking time to read, leave a comment or kudos <3
> 
> I'm really enjoying the writing process for this fic--I feel like I'm particularly getting to explore characters like Hughes and Alex while I build up Adriel's character. I always thought Alex was extremely kind-hearted and at his core, was trying to save the lives he couldn't in Ishval--while Hughes was driven to provide for his family and make all of his difficult experiences mean something. I feel like Roy would have a harder time--he's got his goal, but he's always calculating and trying to force down the trauma so he can climb the ladder and become Fuhrer. I feel like all these characters have internal contradictions and are very, very complicated people, so that's what I wanted for my OC.
> 
> Like everyone else, Adriel's sorting through the whiplash and complicated thoughts from the war, and she's doing her best too ;)
> 
> The song is by [Casualties of Cool](https://youtu.be/QNlLqvZPfI8) (and is particularly fitting for Hughes!)

_Oh, have I been remiss?_  
_And we’ve lived behind walls that have made us alone_  
_Searching for pieces that may be a home_  
_How in the world is another one gone?_  
_Howling the words:_  
_Down, down, down..._

 _Lord, keep these wheels a turning,_  
_I’m always rolling_  
_Keep, these roads from burning._  
_She’s walking talking, louder again_  
_I put my time in. Spare me._

 _It’s never stopping, you know_  
_Have mercy._  
_Forgive me._  
_So, trip the path unbeaten._  
_It's all I know to give them._  
_Whisper a prayer in tatters_  
_And hope it matters._

_I hope it matters._

 

[Autumn, 1909 – Central City]

 

Adriel found herself staring into the maid’s terrified eyes when she awoke—it seemed as though the girl had been trying to wake her up, only to find herself thrown onto the floor with a forearm pressed hard into her windpipe. With her wits about her, Adriel moved away at once, her heart hammering. For a moment, the surprise, as well as the sudden sight of fair eyes and skin had sent her right back to the bloodied streets of Iunet.

“I’m sorry,” she kept her distance on principle—not many people would take kindly to being attacked and then helped up by their attacker. It was unnerving that she’d fallen asleep so deeply to allow this, leaving a vulnerable feeling that she wasn’t sure what to do with.

The maid had scooted as far back as she could, her back to the wall and her hand to her neck, blue eyes wide and alarmed. It occurred to Adriel that she hadn’t even asked the woman’s name the day before.

She sighed, kneading one hand against her eyes in frustration. “Are you hurt?”

“N-no. Should I not have done that, miss?” the girl looked close to tears.

“I shouldn’t have; I didn’t even realise that I was doing it,” Adriel explain. “But for both our sakes please just yell or something until I get up.”

“Okay,” she nodded without argument, wiping her eyes with a small, desperate gesture. She was fighting hard to keep her composure. “I know Major Armstrong came back from the war with issues, but he generally just has nightmares.”

“What’s your name?”

“Lillian, miss,” she said in a small voice.

“Okay, Lillian,” Adriel slowly came closer as the maid got to her feet, still somewhat winded and shaky. “I assume you’re here to get me for breakfast.”

“Yes miss,” she nodded emphatically. “Major Armstrong would like to introduce you to his family today. They’re returning from their extended vacation.”

Ah. They’d fled the war and fighting—it was easy for those who had significant means.

She kept all moving to a minimum as the maid began setting out the necessary things; Adriel had the inkling that she’d need to be careful around her for a while before the fear went away. Eyeing the series of undergarments, stockings, corsets and skirts that were being paraded around, dressing today would be just as painful as the previous evening. There was something extremely off-putting about being so constricted—once everything was on, she couldn’t bend at the waist and there were all these swishing skirts to think of. It was a small blessing, but as it turned out, day dressing was far less of a pain than the night. As if acknowledging that her new mistress had not the foggiest idea about what was appropriate, Lillian chose everything herself.

After an hour of assorted torture, Adriel stared at herself in the mirror, deeply uncomfortable. It was less opulent than the beaded getup that she was forced to go to dinner in, but it still seemed worlds away from what she was used to. For as long as she could remember, clothing was meant to provide protection, to ease one’s movement—it was rarely for decoration, especially if those decorations made the items impractical. She’d seen Amestrian clothing before, no doubt, but something about it being on _her_ was upsetting. She didn’t feel like herself. They ended up with a shin-length, cream overskirt with a matching jacket and an underbodice of slightly a darker cream, complete with a brown belt that matched the short-heeled shoes. With a pang, she idly wondered how much they’d sink into the sands in Ishval. Would she ever return there?

The table was laden with an astounding amount of food, mirroring the spread the night before. It was less surprising today, as she soon realised that Alex ate enough for a small village.

“Ah, Adriel, good morning,” he laid down his newspaper, twinkling at her. “You slept well?”

In a way—she had. This was her first, dreamless night since the war ended. “Things were fine until this morning. I’m afraid I scared the daylights out of your maid when she came to wake me up.”

“Oh,” he wilted slightly. “I should have told them to be careful. I’ll speak to the staff later. In any case, you need to have a good breakfast—I noticed you didn’t eat sufficiently during dinner. Was something strange about the food? I could ask the cook to make something Ishvalan, if you like.”

“No, I’m just not used to eating that much. In Ishval we ate what we needed to survive—warriors like me would often eat a little more because we were always training, but as the war was on, it was never a lot.”

He nodded. “That was what I was going to bring up. Your conscription begins in only six months, and you need to regain your strength—I imagine you lost quite a bit of weight in the prison, and you need to be at your best before you go to Briggs. I’ve also enlisted the tutors who worked with my sisters and I to see you.”

“Tutors?”

“Olivier, my sister, has extremely high standards. Your alchemical knowledge is no doubt good, but you should know about Amestrian history and other, relevant subjects. You might also find that they help you in your journey,” he explained.

“Know your enemy?”

“Well, yes,” he sighed. “In a manner of speaking. One of the tutors is also adept in firearms, and another in physical combat—they trained me before I joined the army. You will also learn strategic theory—think of it as a very, very swift introduction to your military life. You won’t go through basic training, but you will need these skills if you want to survive Briggs.”

“I’ve heard the reputation,” Adriel said. “Briggs seems to be a punishment more than anything.”

“Then you have an idea of what you’re in for,” Alex went on. “But onto a lighter topic—you’ll be meeting the family today. They should be back in time for tea.”

The girl smiled wryly. “What do they think of this whole fiasco? Not only did you take in a stray, you took in a prisoner of war.”

“My sisters are curious—I would say they’re somewhat wary. My mother is fine, as my father is in support. He sees the task of aiding the military in this venture as an honourable thing—something to help bandage the reputation I trampled over.”

“I see. So, your family as a whole supports the Amestrian military? It seems like the whole family honour thing is tied to service.”

“That is correct. The Armstrongs have always served in the military. My father himself served.”

Adriel took a sip of tea. “So, it’s safe to say that the both of us have a lot riding on this, then,”

Alex put down his knife and fork, looking at her with a serious, hard expression. “I put family honour into perspective when it involved killing civilians. My real dishonour was that I just ran away, without standing up for what I believed. This is about the long game—it’s about saving your life and making something matter. If on the surface, this ‘service to the country’ helps my parents sleep at night, then fine. Maybe one day our work will pay off and the Amestrian military will do something good with ourselves, and then every Armstrong can serve with pride.”

That strange, confused feeling was back. Adriel cut into her eggs, focusing on every chew with the intent to keep herself objective in enemy territory.

\---

[Three months later]

[Winter, 1909 – East City]

“Lieutenant General Grumman,” Roy saluted. “I’m surprised that you requested me.”

In truth, it was a rather transparent lie—of course the Lieutenant General accepted the intended self-depreciation and waved it off.

“My dear Major Mustang, I _won_ you. I daresay the greatest offensive force of Amestris would be incomplete without the Hero of Ishval.”

Again, the nickname chafed against him like sandpaper. “I hope to be of assistance, sir.”

Grumman gestured for him to sit, hoisting a large, marble chessboard from his bookshelf onto the table. “Now that we’ve gone through all of that tosh. Let’s say we have a proper welcome, shall we?”

Roy smiled, despite himself. Riza was right—her grandfather was an odd one. Dangerous, to be sure—the silliness, the glinting glasses and ridiculous moustache hid a carefully honed cunning. In a way, it was something aspirational. While he couldn’t mimic the moustache, he would certainly learn from his ease of secrecy.

It was clear that Grumman was an old hand at chess; even without his intention to lose on principle, Roy was sure that he’d be beaten anyway. His king toppled sadly off the board, and he deftly caught it before the precious marble hit the floor.

“Well done, sir.”

“My, I did expect more competition than that. You must be tired from your journey—why don’t you go take a rest? We’ll try again some other time.”

“Yes, sir, I’ll do that.”

Ah, he was being chided for holding back. If _that’s_ how it was—then perhaps this would be a good way to whet his teeth. He was sure that his skills would improve, to be sure—but when they had…he wouldn’t be caught out at hiding his prowess again.

Riza was at the end of the hall, dutifully at attention, despite the late hour. “Warrant Officer,”

“Major,” she saluted. “I trust your visit went well.”  
  
He signaled for her to begin walking and sighed. “More than well, we played chess. I’m sure you were tired standing there for an hour.”

“It’s the job, sir.”

He smiled again, sure that the exhaustion was trickling through. “I see he’s got a million pictures of you all over the place. Did you make him that mug?”

He caught the slightest hint of colour rising in his subordinate. “I was five, sir. I’m not sure why he keeps it, it leaks.”

“You should make him a new one, some time,” he considered. “One he can drink out of.”

“With all due respect sir, I think if I tried now, it may actually turn out _worse_ ,” she said wryly. “While you were in there, Master Sergeant Havoc received a telegraph from Central, with the information you requested from Captain Hughes.”

“Great,” he stretched lightly as they exited the ornate main building, greeting the chill air of the courtyard. “We’ll discuss it while we get something to eat. If the mess hall closes before I get there I’ll collapse.”

Riza patiently kept her stride. When seated she didn’t touch her food, instead, she retrieved a sealed envelope from her jacket and passed it to her superior.

Roy paused, his fork suspended in his mouth and unpeeled the wax insignia. “Hm. Seems like everything’s still quiet. Half of this is gushing about Gracia…” he sat up straight, causing Riza to stop mid-chew. “He’s meeting Armstrong’s pet prisoner of war.”

“The Ishvalan alchemist?”

“Yeah,” Roy suddenly felt absolutely worn down. “His idea, apparently. Dumbass.”

“It’d be worth seeing how she’s coming along, won’t it?”

“You’re right, but,” he put the transcript away. “Hughes isn’t doing well with what happened the day we captured her. If I was there I’d tell him not to do this and let someone else go. I don’t know what answers he’s going there for, but he wasn’t in the greatest place. When you go looking for these things—people can tell you anything they want. Whatever she tells him is going to stick.”

The smile on her face was unpleasant—struck between sad and a sick irony. “Are we hoping that she’s going to be generous and kind?”

He remembered the raw hatred, seething within red eyes—the rest of her face marred with blood and dirt.

“We have to hope she’s nicer than we were.”

\---

[Winter, 1909 – Central City]

“Miss Lockheed,”

By now, Lillian had learned to stay sufficiently away from the bed when she woke the young alchemist up. Through the quilts, dark hair shifted as she stirred, and soon the girl herself was visible.

“What time is it?” she asked, sitting up.

“Just after six in the evening,” Lillian responded, moving to strip the sheets so they could be remade later. “Captain Maes Hughes will arrive in an hour. I’m sorry to disrupt your nap, I know you’ve had a long day.”

Adriel got out of bed on autopilot, rubbing her eyes. Of course. Alex had mentioned this earlier, before her onslaught of training began at dawn. It was reminiscent of what her teacher had put her through—yet it was somehow worse in the strange, frigid mansion. Her skills had been rusty in the beginning, but with a good place to sleep and enough food, she was soon back in shape. The scholarly classes were enlightening—used to learning even the dullest things for her alchemical training, this wasn’t hard. Firearms took a while, but thanks to the strictness of the tutor, she’d improved drastically within months. The cold metal still felt alien in her hands, despite the training—she’d developed a strong distaste for guns. Still, she vaguely wondered if they’d thought this through—with practice, she wouldn’t be forced to shoot people at point blank anymore. They were quite literally making her into a stronger enemy.

Meanwhile, after she was back in fighting shape, the instructor for hand-to-hand combat joyfully retired, passing his position to Alex, citing his desire to keep his neck. Thus, those sessions were carded for the horrific hours of the early morning, before his military duties took him out of the mansion. The man was quick for his size—almost too quick for her to land a blow, at first. Though, even if she did, it was like punching a skin-covered rock. If she really was in the business of killing Amestrians—this wouldn’t be the route to take with him in the slightest. He was suitably intrigued by her fighting style, but his focus was on increasing her strength, though she doubted she would ever be close to his monstrous ability.

Today’s itinerary saw her doing her training early, followed by an endless parade of tutors drilling in history and military theory. After a long session of her firearms training, she was allowed to take two hours of her own time to do alchemical research, and then one hour of leisure before dinner. As it seemed, that hour was being cut short. Going through the motions, she stood by stiffly as Lillian swiftly adorned her in an appropriate dress. She’d taken to wearing long coats with deep slits up the front panel to free her legs, along with trousers and boots—however for visits, they apparently would not do.

Adriel dragged herself down the stairs, where Alex was waiting, seated next to a tea service, much like the day they first met.

“Adriel; I received the reports from your tutors,” he signaled to the thick stack of papers on the end table at his side. “Things are coming along well. Your firearms tutor would like to branch out into long guns.”

She’d still rather cut into things, but she nodded anyway, accepting a cup of tea with a grateful murmur. The past three months had made a strange feeling grow—she was still awfully torn between holding onto her suspicion and the same, warm feeling that she’d had with her teacher. The feeling of comfort. The sound of piano music wafted gently, and she turned to watch Catherine’s fingers moving deftly across the keys from across the room. Amue and Strongine—inheriting the looks of their father, were absorbed in books, seated in the niches near windows, overlooking the yard.

“You have found yourself at home here, haven’t you?”

Adriel left her reverie and considered the question. Her answer was honest, even if it was full of regrets. “Yes, I have.”

“That’s good to hear. You’ve truly fit in like a sibling,” Alex nodded. “You actually remind me a lot of Olivier. Same stoic expression all the time, but I can see that your kindness; you get along well with my other sisters, which I’m grateful for.”

A butler entered, announcing that the guest had arrived. Adriel turned to the door and froze. Just like that—she was in Ishval again, staring down the Amestrian men who’d come upon them at the spring. She could almost hear Kilea’s frightened breathing—and Myra’s comforting, shushing sounds.

Hughes’ gaze was fixed on the young woman—the way her eyes went from neutral—comfortable, even, to a hard, cold stare. It was as though the feeling had leaked out of them, going from rubylike to bloody, making it easy to think of how much of it he’d spilled in the desert.

“Captain Hughes—or should I say, Major,” Armstrong rose from his chair. “I hear your promotion from the war effort has been finalized.”

“I just recently got that letter, strange how quickly the word travels,” he sighed. The girl was still looking at him silently, making no move to break her steady eye contact.

“Adriel, this is soon-to-be Major Maes Hughes, the colleague of mine who wanted to meet you,” Armstrong had turned to her, only to be taken aback by the expression on her face.

“It’s because we first encountered one another in Ishval,” Hughes explained. “Roy and I were sent with our squad to stake out the oasis outside of a village.”

“I assume from the fact that you’re all alive that this did not turn into a confrontation,” Armstrong looked between them.

“Roy made the call,” he explained. “I was too scared shitless to do anything, so he did. I wanted to talk with her about it.”

She finally spoke, her voice as hard as her eyes. “What exactly would you want to talk about? That letting us go just delayed the inevitable?”

“We didn’t know that,” Hughes felt the sick feeling return—every time he thought of that woman’s body, lying there covered in blood and gore…

“You two sit down,” Armstrong motioned to them both. “And discuss. I’ll just be here to make sure no one gets hurt.”

“Thank you,” he took a seat facing her, pausing to look at his comrade. “I also came to tell you, before we get into this…Dr. Marcoh is missing.”

He almost missed it as he was considering Armstrong’s reaction, but the hard eyes thawed slightly in a flicker of recognition.

“Dr. Marcoh? Are there any leads?” Armstrong handed him a cup of tea, his expression tense.

“No, but his place is such a mess that they don’t know if he packed up himself or was dragged out,” Hughes sighed. “It’ll take us weeks to sort through everything.”

“Would he run from the military?”  Adriel cut quietly across them.

Armstrong looked pensive. “Perhaps. As you saw, his time in the military was difficult on him.”

Adriel nodded. “He had a conscience that he couldn’t outrun.”

She wasn’t looking at him when she said it, but the remark stung like salt on a bullet wound. He decided to press on. “You knew Dr. Marcoh?”

“He patched me up after your soldiers shot me—the only one who wasn’t trying to kill me or was terrified to come within a foot of me.”

“Dr. Marcoh insisted that he come with me when I met Adriel,” Armstrong said. “He wanted her to take the enlistment, to avoid the death penalty,” he looked at her. “I don’t think you’d have heard me out without him, would you?”

“No,” she admitted. “I trusted him. Stupid, maybe, but I could see his regret. I heard about it. He never treated me like the others did.”

“I daresay Dr. Marcoh has made it hard for you to hate us all,” Armstrong’s stoic face was unchanged, but his voice carried a bitter amusement.

Adriel remained silent, looking into the fireplace. Hughes saw a brief flash of grief across her face, quickly hidden by a stoic, cautious demeanour.  
  
“I came here to talk to you about one of the women you were with,” Hughes pressed, stealing any shred of an opening. “The younger one.”

“Kilea,” Adriel said flatly.

Finally, he could put the name to a face that haunted his nightmares. “What can you tell me about her?”

She stared at him, searching his face for some clue. Her voice retained its distant, matter-of-fact unfriendliness. “We took her in when we passed through the last village you all raided. Her husband was killed by Amestrians. We were trying to get her safely away.”

“You didn’t know her otherwise?”  
  
“I didn’t know either of them—her or the old woman, Myra. We took them with us because it was safer for them.”

A chill set into his bones. If that group hadn’t taken them on, would they have survived—gotten out of Ishval? They must have known that a pregnant woman and an old woman would slow them down. Their intel added that the group was made up of a strange mix of fighters and what looked to be ordinary people.  
  
“…you took them on even though it meant that your chances of survival were lowered.”

Adriel turned back towards the fire. “We couldn’t leave them when they wanted to come along. That wasn’t an option,” her expression tightened. “Anyone who was able and willing to come with us did.”

“Why?”

“Because my teacher was adamant that we protect the helpless. They weren’t warriors. I thought she and her baby deserved a chance. All they got was an extra day. In a way, our decision came to the same end as your friend’s.”

He was feeling sick to his stomach. Red eyes settled on him in the silence.

She sighed, tired and as though she was far, far older. “What did you hope to accomplish by asking all that?”

“I don’t know. Punishment? To alleviate my guilt?” he rubbed his eyes, willing the images of the war to recede from his consciousness. “Would you want revenge, Miss Lockheed?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“If you had the chance to destroy the same people on our side.”

Her laugh was cold. Mocking. “I’ve never killed a civilian. Why would I do that? What did a regular Amestrian woman or her unborn child do to me? I don’t think I have it in me. Even with my companions—I couldn’t bear to have a hand in their deaths even if it was indirect. Even if it meant preserving myself, I couldn’t abandon them. But I still failed, and that was my fault—and the fault of those soldiers who fired the bullets.”

Ah. There was the difference that stung. Would ever he be able to do the same?

Should he?

What was even right anymore? Was there such a thing?

“So then, what if you could kill someone else,” he began. “Like me, someone who had a hand in this atrocity?”

Armstrong started in his chair, but Hughes waved him off.

“That’s a coward’s way out. What good would it do? You don’t run the military, you don’t call the shots. You did what you were told, and you have to live with it. You die and the ideology that sent you to Ishval remains. So, what?”

That fixation—one that reached past something as simplistic as _people_ —reminded him of Roy. He wondered what his friend would think of that—he’d likely take it as a deep affront. Yet still, amongst everything else, it sparked a sense of familiarity in him. One that made it easier to see past the cold, distant exterior of the girl in front of him.

“That’s surprisingly calculated. Don’t you feel any anger towards those of us who did the killing?”

“Of course I do,” she remained coldly impassive. “But I’m here for something bigger than that.”

“Then tell me about it.”

“I’m here to survive,” Adriel told him plainly. “Because I don’t deserve to die yet, and a dead person can’t do a thing. I can’t just die after I failed everyone—maybe I think I deserve to suffer too. Maybe during this conscription, I might find out exactly how you felt—but that doesn’t scare me. I’ve got nothing left to lose.”

Ah. Easier said than done. Those words felt so familiar, as though they’d left his lips yesterday, when Roy had asked him _why_ he fought. She was young—not exactly an idealist, but still, he could remember being like this. There was that sense, that illusion of control that would reveal itself to be a farce. After what she’d been through, she probably knew it would end that way, and yet she continued regardless. It was appropriately bull-headed—the mark of a soldier, alright.

\---

“I’m Warrant Officer Maria Ross,” the short-haired woman saluted, an easy smile on her face. It was glaringly obvious that she hadn’t been in Ishval—her manner was too bright, too carefree. She’d done a reasonably thorough job of searching Adriel for weapons before they left the manor, taking a dark military vehicle into town. Alex had assigned an escort so that she could explore the town a little on her own—something she hadn’t been able to do since she arrived.

“Adriel Lockheed,” Adriel extended a hand, and to her credit, the woman took it without hesitation.

“I thought you’d be bigger,” Maria opened the door for her politely. “They make you seem like some scary monster in the office.”

“Surprise,” she said blandly. “I’m sure you drew the short straw if you’re spending your day like this.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” the car started smoothly. The novelty of being in a vehicle hadn’t quite worn off yet—Adriel looked on in fascination as they left the manor behind. “I believed the Major when he told me about you. So, in a sense,” she glanced off the road for a second, eyes twinkling. “I’m actually playing hooky and getting out of paperwork.”

Adriel found herself genuinely smiling—it felt like an alien sensation after so long. “I’ll try to comply, then.”

In Central City, Maria parked in a military allotment, taking her through the streets on foot.

“It’s nicer this way, isn’t it? Major Armstrong suggested that we start with a bit of shopping. There’s a nice bookstore here, but I thought we should start at the library.”

“Shopping?” Adriel paused. “I just wanted to wander around. I’m basically destitute.”

Maria gleefully extracted a shining watch from her uniform “I have this—Major Armstrong’s identification as a State Alchemist. Most of these stores are connected with the military, so once we have this, we can charge directly to his account. If we go off route, we can always stop in at the financial affairs office and withdraw some.”

“Is he that trusting with his money?”

“Well, he is part of a hugely rich family,” Maria shepherded her into the library, where the pleasant scent of books availed her. “I think this is chump change in comparison.”

“Strange way to live,” Adriel looked around, enraptured by all the neatly assembled shelves. She didn’t even know where to start—but she could see herself spending the day in here.

Within a few hours, a stack of books that nearly dwarfed her in size was accumulated on a desk, while she voraciously thumbed through volume after volume.

“All alchemy stuff, eh?” Maria plucked a book off the pile. “You’re all so studious.”

“It comes with the territory,” Adriel said. “Besides, I’m told that I need to stay relevant to stay certified as a State Alchemist. I’m not worried about it, but I do like to collect more ideas.”

“What happens if you don’t pass the certification?” Maria asked. “I thought that your sentence was conscription—you still have to re-certify?”

“If I don’t pass,” she said wryly. “I get sent to prison again. Probably executed.”

The Warrant Officer paled. “Are you serious? And you’re so blasé about it!”

“It is what it is,” she shrugged. “I spent a couple months wondering when they’d execute me, so it’s nothing new; I don’t think I’ll have an issue, anyway. They couldn’t even figure out how to make a spark with my transmutation circles. That’s the bare minimum of what I was working on.”

“That’s some confidence, I have to say,” Maria sighed. “I know I’m a soldier and all, but having a sword over your head all the time is something I can’t imagine.”

Adriel got up from the desk, stretching lightly. “I try not to fret about things I can’t control. I know what the level of my alchemy is—whether or not they’re impressed is subjective. I can’t help that.”

She strode back to the many bookcases, perusing for books on environmental alchemical science—upon her return, a blonde, delicate-looking woman was talking to Maria with a shy smile.

“You don’t need to call me that,” she waved her hands, embarrassed. “I can’t get used to it anyway.”  
“Aw, ma’am, I imagine it’ll get easier,” Maria grinned. “The wedding was just the past month, wasn’t it?”

“Oh, this is the woman you’re escorting, isn’t it?” she turned to Adriel, beaming. “I’m Gracia.”  
  
Adriel shook the extended hand, feeling somewhat out of sorts. Most Amestrians in the library gave her strange, furtive glances—permeated with whispers.

“Adriel Lockheed,” she volunteered. “Are you friends with the Warrant Officer?”

“I married one of her superior officers,” she said sheepishly. “So I’m not a friend, per se, but an interloper.”

“That’s not true, ma’am,” Maria said earnestly. “What have you picked up there, anyway? I can’t read this scientific stuff for leisure at all.”

“It’s actually a collection of recipes,” Gracia held up the book sheepishly. “Honestly, why would you put these here? Cookbooks next to chemistry,” she grumbled.

Adriel suppressed a tiny stirring of amusement, picking up a formidable stack of books. “Cooking _is_ chemistry, I guess but it does seem like an out-of-the-way place to put them though. Maybe the librarian was having a laugh.”

“I’m not,” she said grumpily. “I looked through here for an hour—I worked up a vicious appetite. Speaking of—why don’t you two come with me for tea? I’m meeting my husband near here.”

Maria nodded vigorously. “That sounds great, doesn’t it, Miss Lockheed?”

It had been a long time since she was this comfortable—and it did sound great.

\---

“She was with your _wife_?” Roy’s voice was dripping with incredulity.

The image was still clear in his head—after a long day of toiling at the Court Martial office, he’d strolled down to his favourite café…to find a former enemy combatant sipping tea alongside Gracia. “Seems like they found one another in the library; I can thank Warrant Officer Ross for this.”

“I wasn’t expecting Armstrong to let her out so easily,”

Hughes twirled the phone cord around his fist, earning himself a warning glare from Sarah, the attending comm. officer, “Roy—this is the thing. She seemed fine. Gracia liked her—they were chatting pretty happily before I showed up. I explained the whole thing after she left and Gracia was surprised…but she hasn’t really changed her opinion.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I get the feeling that she already knows the absolute shitshow we were a part of,” Hughes felt the tiredness of that conversation down to his bones. “At least abstractly. The newspapers may not be printing it, but people talk.”

“That must be _some_ gossip,” Roy said flatly.

“I think she was just thankful that the girl wasn’t running around on a killing spree for revenge,” he sighed. “It’s hard to keep thinking in black and white terms when there’s a person in front of you. Before, in Ishval—we never saw them alive for long, not unless you counted Erbe,” there was a fleeting silence between them after the name was uttered. In his hands, he could still feel the kickback on the gun that muggy, blood-stained day. “Sometimes I wonder what’s worse: holding onto whatever your mind desperately makes up to keep you sane—or having it broken up in front of you and seeing the reality.”

“Are you sure this isn’t something you want to see?”

“Maybe. But it doesn’t make me feel better—and I think I deserve that.”

“You can’t suffer for all eternity, Hughes,” his friend’s tone was tight—chiding, but it still carried the undercurrent of something else.

“You can’t tell me you’re not suffering too.”

Roy cursed under his breath. “Yeah, we’re all suffering, but I’m not into self-flagellation.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love some good character development >:D
> 
> Things should be picking up in the next few chapters, and our two testy alchemists should be meeting soon!


End file.
